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THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



THE EFFECTIVE 
SMALL HOME 



BY 

LILIAN BAYLISS GREEN 

Formerly Editor Little House Department 

OF 

The Ladies* Home Journal 



ILLUSTRATED 

WITH 

DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 

BY 

THE AUTHOR 



NEW YORK 
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY; 

1917 



Copyright, 1917, by 
Robert M. McBride & Co. 



9•^ 



MAR i5 JSI7 



Published February, 1917 



C;i.A-i57480 



TO 
MY HUSBAND 

THE AMIABLE VICTIM 

OF 

MY HOME-MAKING EXPERIMENTS 



CONTENTS 

CHAFTEB PAGE 

Introduction to Part I i 

I Training the Child's Sense of Beauty . 3 
II The Impossible Type of Rented House 
AND Things That May Be Done to Im- 
prove It 13 

III A Practical Plan for the Newly Mar- 

ried 24 

IV How I Furnished Our New House . . 34 
Introduction to Part II 51 

I Suggestions for Furnishing .... 57 

II Lighting Fixtures 75 

III The Hanging of Curtains 79 

IV Floor Coverings 89 

V Tableware and Silver 94 

VI Pictures and Other Ornaments . . . 103 

VII System in the Household Ill 

VIII Ugly Things Improved or the Art of 

Making Use of What Is at Hand . .117 
IX Plants^ Flowers and Fruits in House 

Decoration 122 

Appendix I 133 

Appendix II Recipes and Suggestions . 145 

Bibliography 185 

Index 189 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 



IN HALF-TONE 

A living-room which contains expensive and inex- 
pensive furnishings .... Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

6 
6 

7 



An English style suburban house of stucco . 

A Colonial house restored 

A room improved by redecorating 

Mahogany furniture against a background of gray 
walls 

Two views of a well planned kitchen 

A buffet both sides of which are utilized . 

A hall and a dining-room entrance 

A symmetrical arrangement for a dining-room 

A simple and attractive guest room . 

A buffet made from a kitchen cabinet 

A Hepplewhite sideboard 

Furniture painted at home 

A washable slip cover for a wing chair . 

A bathroom which contains a linen closet 

Iron bedsteads made sightly by chintz coverings 

A corner cupboard made from old window blinds 

A day bed that conceals another bed by its valance 

A kitchen 30 x 40 inches 

Two views of an ingeniously made closet 

Ivy used for wall decoration 



7 

28 

29 

40 > 

41 

41 

58 

58 

58 

59 

84 

84 

85 

118 

118 

119 

124 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACINa 
PAGE ^ 

A corner effectively arranged 124 

Flowers on a window sill 125 ^ 

A plate rack that obviates dish wiping . . . . 125 v 

IN LINE 

PAGE 

A Colonial homestead whose gardens carry out. the 
motif of the architect and express the owner's 
individuality 4 

The main section of the Colonial house after restora- 
tion 7 

A home evolved from a doctor's offices . . . .14 
A cupboard built to cover an unsightly partition . 15 
The bathroom side of the cupboard, used as a sup- 
ply closet 15 

A house that was easily made livable ... .18 

Designs that show what can be accomplished with 

two rooms and a bath 26 

The ground plan of a nine-roomed suburban home . 35 

The second floor of the nine-roomed house ... 36 

A plate rack easily made that can be used above a 

serving table 66 

Different types of doors require different curtain 

treatment 81 

Effective curtaining for the old-fashioned type of 

high window . 81 

Curtaining which does not keep out the light . . 82 

Three types of over curtains 83 

Decorative windows should have plain curtains . . 84 
Regulate light from high casement windows by 

Dutch or double curtains 86 

Curtains of thick materials hung on rings take the 

place of shades at casement windows ... 86 
The primary use of portieres is to insure privacy . 87 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAOIi 

A salad bowl of plain green pottery, Sedgi plates of 
the same shade of green and figured cruets give 
variety to the meal . 96 

Mantel treatment in sleeping room of old Colonial 

house 109 

Showing what can be done with an ugly oak chiffo- 
nier 121 

The lights in the window on Christmas Eve . . .127 

Candle brackets ISO 



THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



PART I 
INTRODUCTION 

"Life don't consist in holding a good hand, but 
in playing a poor hand well." 

A Ranchman's Epitaph. 

The ranchman's philosophy has always ap- 
pealed to me, but never more so than in its 
application to the Effective Small Home. 
Such a home is, to my mind, one that affords 
an environment for family life which inspires 
high ideals, to be practiced first in the home, 
and afterwards in the community. 

In order that the small home may be effec- 
tive, both esthetically and ethically, house- 
keeping, which is only one factor in home-mak- 
ing, must be efficient; that is, there must be a 
definite plan whereby required results may be 
obtained with the least possible expenditure of 
time, energy, and money. 

In the Bibliography is given a list of books, 
specializing in different phases of efficiency, 
which will be of service to those who wish to 



ii INTRODUCTION 

perfect the machinery of the household. In 
this book, it is my aim to show that charm in 
the home is quite as important as efficiency, 
and that one need not be obtained at the ex- 
pense of the other. 

So many efficiency experts have minds that 
think in terms of proteids and calories, steps 
and hand movements, dollars and cents, with- 
out including the very important terms of 
color, form, and charming arrangement. 
Other writers on the subject of Interior Deco- 
rating go to the other extreme, and write in 
terms of color, form and arrangement exclu- 
sively. 

I was immensely amused, when reading 
Elsie DeWolfe's delightful and valuable book, 
*'The House in Good Taste," to come upon 
this naive ending to her chapter on "Small 
Apartments": "As for the kitchen — that is 
another story. It is impossible to go into that 
subject. And anyway you will find the es- 
sentials supplied for you by the landlord. 
You won't need my advice when you need a 
broom or a coffee-pot or a sauce-pan — you'll 
go buy it." It is very evident that her book 
was not meant for the vast majority of women, 
who not only do their own decorating, but 



INTRODUCTION iii 

their housework as well. Since this book of 
mine is meant primarily for people of mod- 
erate means, instead of ignoring the kitchen, I 
go so far as to urge every woman to see to it 
that an attractive, convenient kitchen comes 
first in the equipment of the home of which 
she is high priestess, performing each day the 
solemn rite of preparing the food which is to 
insure the health of those most dear to her. 

I can hear skeptical readers say: ''That 
may be all very well for the woman who does 
her own work, but what would happen to a 
pretty kitchen with the average maid in it?" 
This is what would probably happen: The 
average maid when first introduced to a 
kitchen that is "the prettiest room in the 
house" is apt to look rather glum. She does 
not feel altogether at home in it at first, for 
she is used to spending her time in a dark room 
with ugly utensils, where nothing matters so 
long as she does certain routine things in an 
indifferent sort of way. By the end of a week 
in my kitchen a maid has developed a pride 
in her surroundings: because things are 
"pretty" she takes better care of them: be- 
cause they are arranged conveniently she fin- 
ishes her work more quickly and is eager to 



iv INTRODUCTION 

dress for the afternoon and be back again in 
her pretty room to read, sew, write letters or 
entertain her friends. She is never ashamed 
to take her friends into my kitchen and I am 
never ashamed to take my friends into hers. 

It may be too much to hope that within the 
present generation one may go at random into 
people's houses and find that the fundamental 
principles of decorating have been observed, 
but the prospect is encouraging, now that the 
common schools are giving attention to these 
things, and art students are more and more en- 
tering the field of interior decoration. 

The greatest scope of improvement in do- 
mestic art Hes with people of moderate means. 
They are the ones who are most eager for 
education, particularly along lines that will 
help them to make what little money they have 
go as far as possible. In order to have even 
the really essential things, it is necessary to 
make sacrifices, so they cannot afford to make 
mistakes. They are therefore less apt than 
are rich people to fill their houses with in- 
harmonious and undesirable things. 

Almost every house needs an overhauling 
several times a year to prevent an accumula- 
tion of unnecessary things. Fewer rather 



INTRODUCTION v 

than more things are needed in most houses, 
and fortunate is the person who has the gift 
of being able to look at a room in his own 
house in a detached way, and with a fresh and 
critical eye decide what may be eliminated or 
so changed as to be more useful or more beau- 
tiful. 

The best decorators know the value of space 
and color as opposed to meaningless things, so 
that the test of an effective home, from the 
present high standard of decorating, is not 
how much it contains but how little. 

Part I of this book is a narrative of personal 
experiences in home-making, which fitted me 
for the editorial work explained in Part II. 

Acknowledgment is due to The Curtis 
Publishing Company, for permission to re- 
print in this volume material which has already 
been used by The Ladies' Home Journal. 

Lilian Bayliss Green. 

New York, September, 1916. 



PART ONE 



THE 
EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

CHAPTER I 

Training the Child's Sense of Beauty 

AT the age of three, I was one day dis- 
covered pasting the colored picture of a 
lion to the leg of the piano. When my mother 
asked me why I was doing that, I said I was 
"decowating." That is the only one of my 
childish remarks that was ever remembered, 
and that one probably because my whole life 
has been spent in decorating one thing or an- 
other, usually small houses. First came paper 
doll-houses, furnished with enchanting *'sets" 
that a clever older cousin used to cut for us out 
of rather stiff paper. In time we were able to 
cut for ourselves, and it has just occurred to 
me that an older person could very easily teach 
children to make their paper furniture after 
designs of the different "periods," thus famil- 



4 



THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



iarizing them at an early age with what is really 
the best in house furnishings. 

The house in which I was born, though out 
in Ohio, looked as if it belonged in some New 
England village, for it was Colonial in design 
and painted white, with green shutters. Low 
and rambling, with broad gabled roofs and pil- 




: yjo roc ■ 



A Colonial homestead whose gardens carry out the motif of the 
architect and express the owner's personality 

lared porches, it stood in the center of a large 
yard full of shrubs and trees. 

My mother had one side of the yard planted 
with sod brought from the woods, so that in the 
spring it was a mass of pale pink spring beau- 
ties, with violets and anemones showing here 
and there. Besides the rose garden, the bed 



TRAINING THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 5 

of perennials, and the row of poet's narcissus 
and jonquils that blossomed each spring at the 
foot of a terrace, I remember vividly the cool, 
shady rockery: a fairyland to a small child, 
filled as it was with lilies of the valley, colum- 
bines, day lilies, maidenhair fern, jack-in-the- 
pulpits, and other woodsy things that made the 
setting for many a flight of a childish imagina- 
tion. 

My mother's garden was very expressive of 
her personality, but when she furnished the in* 
side of the house, instead of carrying the simple 
charm of the architect's idea into the furnish- 
ings, as would have been done in New Eng- 
land, she was influenced as so many brides are 
by the fashions of the day, so the rest of her 
life had to be spent with mid- Victorian furni- 
ture covered with black haircloth, lace cur- 
tains, oil paintings in heavy gilt frames, fig- 
ured Brussels carpets, black marble mantels, 
stereotyped bric-a-brac, and white and gold 
china. Fortunately for us children, my 
mother's buoyant, happy nature and her music 
with which she enlivened the house did much 
to counteract the gloom of the furnishings, and 
made it homelike in spite of them. 

An influence even then at work in forming 



6 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

my taste, were the pictures by Kate Green- 
away and Walter Crane with which my father 
kept me supplied. Unconsciously I preferred 
their cheerful pleasant rooms, the colors, simple 
furnishings, gay chintz curtains, plain walls 
and symmetrical arrangement of which, all ap- 
pealed to me and made me love their books. 
That influence has lasted all through my life, 
and I have always preferred a small pictur- 
esque house to a large pretentious one. 

A part of the old house was torn down many 
years ago, but the main part has been restored 
and is now occupied by a woman of taste, who, 
recognizing the possibilities of the house, has 
done things to it that have completely trans- 
formed the interior. The ugly grained wood- 
work in the hall has been painted a cream 
white, which brings out detail that was quite 
lost before. On the walls is a landscape paper 
in tones of gray and gray-green, making the 
hall seem much wider than when it had dark 
paper on the walls. 

When I was recently taken into our old 
"parlor" it was difficult to realize that in the 
center of this very room had once stood the 
marble-topped table that held a vase of wax 
flowers covered with a glass globe. Not a 











The coloring and general character of this English stucco 
house are carried into the treatment of the interior 




The main part of the Colonial house the plan of 
which IS shown on page seven 




All ugly rooDi tro)isforined by changing the zvalls from red 

to white 




A sunny room ivith mahogany furniture admits of plain 

gray walls 



TRAINING THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 7 



vestige of mid- Victorian ugliness remains, al- 
though the mantel is the same one of black 
marble that has always been there. The floors 
and woodwork have been painted black to har- 
monize with the mantel, the piano too is black, 
but the rest of the furniture is all Colonial, the 
sofas and chairs having slip covers of glazed 






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The main section of the Colonial house after restoration 

chintz for summer use in a fascinating design 
of birds and flowers. The walls are plain 
cream color paneled, the hangings and lamp 
shades are of rose color to harmonize with the 
principal tone in the rugs. A few really good 
old portraits in dull gold frames are the only 
wall decoration, but jars of flowers about the 
room, and glimpses of neighboring gardens 



8 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

through the windows, prevent the effect from 
being too restrained. The old center chande- 
lier has been removed, and at night lighted by 
candles and lamps, the room is one of the 
pleasantest living-rooms I have ever seen. It 
was like having a dream come true. 

I was the youngest of five children, and the 
only girl. When I was seven years old my 
mother died and I was taken to spend several 
weeks with my grandmother. The night I 
came home from my visit, my father took me 
by the hand and led me down the hall past the 
*'arch room" where my mother had slept and 
where my crib had always stood, on to what 
had been a storeroom. My brothers were be- 
hind us and everything was very mysterious. 
My father opened the door; the room was 
brightly lighted, and I didn't have to be told 
that this was "My Room." My father and 
brothers had planned it all as a surprise for me, 
and I was the proudest little girl in the world 
at that moment. There was a single bed, a 
little chair, a small chest of drawers with a 
mirror above it, and in a row along the wall 
were all of my dolls, one of them asleep in a 
canopied cradle that my mother had fitted up 
for me. It must have been a very ugly httle 



TRAINING THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 9 

room when analyzed from a decorator's point 
of view, for the wallpaper was dark and fig- 
ured, the chintz curtains at the window and 
closet door differed in design from the walls, 
and the carpet too was figured with a design 
different from either the walls or the chintz. 

I had to play alone when I was at home, 
and for this reason I suppose I always loved 
the chapter called *Tatty Pans" in "Little 
Men," for I had great sympathy for Daisy, 
not only because the boys wouldn't let her play 
with them, but because she had a domestic turn 
of mind similar to my own. Instead of the 
wonderful game of "Patty Pans" that Daisy 
had, I did my first cooking on a stove that I 
made out of bricks in the back yard, and from 
those days of burnt fingers and smoky concoc- 
tions, cooking has always been to me a delight- 
ful exercise of the imagination. 

From the time I was eight until I was 
twelve, most of my waking hours when not in 
school, I spent with little girls who were so 
fortunate as to have playhouses out of doors. 

At last one of my friends was allowed to 
have a miniature iron range in her playhouse, 
and I shall never forget the thrill of seeing the 
steam come out of the spout of the tiny tea- 



10 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

kettle, and the fun of sitting down with our 
dolls to wonderful meals prepared on that 
small stove. 

This is the age at which the simple rudiments 
of cooking should be taught to children. They 
are enthusiastic and impressionable and so 
eager to learn to do what they see older per- 
sons doing. A little girl of five and six may 
be taught to coddle an egg, make junket, cus- 
tard, soup and cocoa ; in fact, many of her own 
meals she may easily be taught to prepare for 
herself. 

The same thing applies to other branches of 
housework, and a little time spent in showing 
a child how to make her dolls' beds properly, 
how to sweep and dust and wash dishes, will be 
time well spent, for the lessons will never be 
forgotten. 

In my early teens I passed through the stage 
that nearly all young persons go through; 
when there is no one to give them object les- 
sons in interior decorating as applied to their 
own rooms. The natural inclination at this 
age is to clutter their rooms with souvenirs of 
all kinds. In my editorial work, I was con- 
stantly receiving letters from girls and boys 
asking me what to do with their collections of 



TRAINING THE SENSE OF BEAUTY H 

college pennants. I had to tell them to retain 
them as collections but to keep them out of 
sight. From the fact that they wrote to ask 
me about them, I knew that they had an in- 
stinctive feeling that those crude colors hung 
together in the same room gave anything but a 
pleasing effect, so I explained that pennants 
were designed to be used in masses on athletic 
fields, and used in that way, in the open, they 
were very effective, and the colors had to be 
vivid and crude, in order to carry. 

At seventeen I started for Vassar, and 
throughout my four years of college life I con- 
fess that the decoration of my rooms was of 
vastly more concern to me than my scholarship. 
My apparent love of decorating led to the fre- 
quent demand for my services in the staging of 
hall plays and in preparations for all sorts of 
festive occasions. I was put on the committee 
for decorating our senior class parlor, and as 
I look now at the picture of that room I am 
surprised to see that there is nothing about it 
that has not stood the test of time. The one 
blot is a drop light of cut glass, suspended from 
a central chandelier by a satin covered tube. 
Fate had a hand in removing this defect. A 
distinguished bishop came to spend a half hour 



12 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

in the senior parlor one Sunday after service. 
Absorbed in a good story that he was telling to 
a group of the girls, he inadvertently leaned 
against the table that held the glass lamp. 
The floor was waxed; the table tipped, and 
down went the bishop amid a shower of glass. 
Only his dignity was hurt, and the one eyesore 
of an otherwise lovely room had been removed. 



CHAPTER II 

The Impossible Type of Rented House and 

Things That May Be Done to 

Improve It 

AFTER leaving college, I spent several 
years studying art in New York and 
Paris; at the end of that time I went west to 
live, in order to be near my family. My 
brothers were all married and my father was 
living with one of them, so I decided to have a 
studio of my own. In an apartment house 
just across the street from where some of my 
family lived I discovered a suite of rooms with 
a private entrance. It had been designed as a 
doctor's suite, but as no doctor had taken it the 
proprietor was glad to let me have it at a very 
low rental. 

One room had three windows to the north; 
just the light I needed for painting; the other 
was a larger room with a closet, running water, 
and a gas grate. The walls in this room were 
covered with a dark green paper with large 

13 



14 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

gold figures. In the studio the paper was 
brown with red and green figures. No wonder 
that my friends thought it a nightmare, and 
tried their best to discourage me, but I knew 
that the essentials were there and that chang- 
ing the papers alone would do much toward 
making the place habitable. This the landlord 
permitted me to do, allowing me twenty cents 




A home evolved from a doctor's offices 



a roll for the papers. For the larger room I 
selected a grasscloth paper as nearly the color 
of the pine woodwork as possible. For the 
studio, I used an oyster white ingrain paper. 
For this room I designed most of the furni- 
ture, and had it made by an ordinary car- 
penter at a very small expense. It consisted 
of a long narrow table with four little benches 
to match it exactly; there was also a cupboard 



IMPROVING THE RENTED HOUSE 15 





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that I had made to hang across an unsightly- 
window of ground glass that was in the center 
of the south wall leading into the bathroom. 

This cupboard 
and set of shelves 
combined served 
as a place to keep 
my dishes, and it 
was decorative as 
well. Directly 
under it I had 
my bed couch. 
For a sideboard, I selected a common kitchen 
table, on top of which I used the top of a 
kitchen cabinet, the whole giving the appear- 
ance of a small 
Welsh dresser. 
All of this furni- 
ture I painted a 
bluish green, and 
I had curtains of 
denim of the 



A cupboard built to cover an un- 
sightly partition 



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The bathroom side of the cupboard, op^iP cliorl^ 
u^ed as a supply closet oaiiic aiiauc, 

hung as to cover 
the woodwork as much as possible. The lower 
sash of all of the windows was covered with 
filet lace, which let in the light but at the same 



16 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

time acted as a screen, the windows being on a 
level with the heads of passers-by. 

In my larger room, I changed the hideous, 
mottled tiles of the mantel to harmonize with 
the yellow walls by going over them with two 
rather thick coats of alabastine. This, being 
a water color preparation, is easily washed off 
if at any time one wishes to get back to the 
original color of the tiles. 

My landlord also gave me permission to 
paint the metal of the grate and chandeliers a 
dull black. They were the cheapest sort of 
finish : imitation copper with splashes of black. 
The floors in both rooms I painted a dark gray- 
green. In my larger room I improvised my 
first kitchenette by having a shelf on the level 
with the top of the washstand where there was 
running water. Around it I had a screen cov- 
ered with denim the same color as the walls. 
A few small rugs on the floor, chintz curtains 
at the five windows, the same chintz used as 
cushions for the chairs, potted plants on the 
window sills, a few pictures, an electric lamp, a 
table and a really beautiful old mahogany desk 
that I had years before picked up for a song 
down in Maryland, completed the furnishings 
of this room. 



IMPROVING THE RENTED HOUSE 17 

It was a surprise to my friends when they 
saw what a complete little home I had made 
for myself without spending much of anything 
except thought and time. One of them, an 
unmarried woman who had spent many dreary 
hours in the hall bedroom of a boarding-house, 
seeing that I had succeeded in removing most 
of the horrors from spinsterhood, proceeded to 
hunt a similar establishment for herself where 
she afterwards had independence, comfort, and 
real happiness without spending as much 
money as it had cost her to board. Two or 
three young women can live together in this 
way very economically and have a wonderful 
time doing it. 

After spending three years in this little 
apartment, I was married and went to live in 
a small neighboring town. Houses for rent 
were scarce, but one day when out by myself 
I discovered a little white house with green 
shutters that appealed to me very much. It 
was on a good corner and faced in such a way 
that all the rooms were sunny. When I took 
my husband to see it, he was not in the least 
enthusiastic about it. He couldn't see any- 
thing except the wall papers, which were in- 
deed enough to give one "the horrors." He 



18 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

had not yet had sufficient evidence of my abil- 
ity to make a home "out of a pine cone" to be 
able to visualize the place as I did in my mind's 
eye, but when convinced of my genuine satis- 
faction with it he succumbed, and we had the 
things sent out to it from my own small apart- 
ment. 

Except bedroom things, we put all the f umi- 




A house that was easily made livable 

ture into one room, the walls of which we had 
changed from a hideous purplish red to a 
white paper with an indistinct white lattice de- 
sign. The woodwork was already painted 
white, so the green curtains and furniture from 
my studio looked quite as if designed for this 
room. For the time being, we kept the desk 
and the Canton chairs here also, which with the 
double student lamp, our first wedding pres- 
ent, made for us a very comfortable and 



IMPROVING THE RENTED HOUSE 19 

attractive combination living- and dining- 
room. 

As we were married very quietly, we were 
spared the usual conventional wedding pres- 
ents. Those who really wanted to give us 
something did so after we were married, letting 
us, as a rule, select what we needed to conform 
to what we already had. 

Even so we made mistakes, the first of which 
was in the selection of a rug for our dining- 
room. 

We selected a very pretty Scotch wool rug 
in a shade of green that went beautifully with 
the green furniture, but we soon found that on 
account of the plain center every spot and 
crumb showed on it. After spending much 
money in having it cleaned, I decided that a 
rug with a small indistinct figure was the only 
kind to have in a dining-room. 

In our tiny guest room, the paper of which 
happened to be white with a design of a single 
rosebud, we put the couch that had been in the 
apartment. My new sewing-machine did duty 
as a dressing table for this room by having 
a board cut to fit the top of it. To this 
board I tacked a valance, above the board on 
the wall I hung a mirror with a white frame, 



20 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

and in front of this dressing table stood a 
spindle-backed chair also painted white. A 
rug and some simple curtains completed this 
room. 

From our next purchase I also learned a 
valuable lesson which I here pass along to the 
inexperienced housewife. We allowed • our- 
selves to be persuaded that a felt mattress of 
good make, with woven wire springs, made an 
excellent bed. Even this combination is ex- 
pensive, but after a year or so of use it is most 
unsatisfactory. The springs sag and the felt 
gets hard in the center. Certainly, the mat- 
tress and springs of the bed upon which one 
spends a third of one's life are of first impor- 
tance in furnishing a house. The best is none 
too good, and the best bed, to my mind, is one 
with an upholstered box spring, and a mattress 
made of hard black South American horsehair. 
This is a good investment, for although the 
mattress must be renovated from time to time, 
the same hair is always good. If it is neces- 
sary to practice economy, let it be in regard to 
the bedstead, rather than to the mattress and 
springs. 

Our living-room we left perfectly bare for 
a while, but at length we had on hand a coUec- 



IMPROVING THE RENTED HOUSE 21 

tion of really choice things, all of them suit- 
able companions for the old desk which was our 
starting point in the equipment of this room. 
One day on our way out to the club to play 
golf, we stopped at the paper hanger's and 
looked over his rather limited supply of 
samples. We found a light gray fabric paper 
that we both felt would be lovely in our sunny 
room with the mahogany furniture. The man 
said he was not busy that afternoon, so we gave 
him the key to the house and when we returned 
home that night our living-room had doubled 
in size. The dark olive green paper with huge 
figures that looked like crawling crabs was 
gone, and in its place this plain gray paper ef- 
fected a most astonishing transformation, and 
even my husband in spite of his doubts in the 
beginning had to admit that the house was all 
that I had dreamed. He helped me then and 
there to arrange the rugs and furniture, and 
I lost no time in getting up the chintz curtains, 
so that that very evening we used this room for 
the first time and decided that it had been well 
worth waiting for. 

In less than a year from this time a promo- 
tion in my husband's business took us to an- 
other town to live. We hated to leave the 



22 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

pretty house where our first happy months had 
been spent, but we had to go, and once more be- 
gan the hunt for a house. 

We chose one at length because of its loca- 
tion. It faced a very pretty park, and certain 
important rooms got the sun. To most people 
it would have seemed palatial compared with 
my own little apartment or with the little house 
we had just left, because this house had hard- 
wood floors and "oak trim." That "oak trim" 
was my greatest objection to it, for nothing 
could be worse as a setting for mahogany furni- 
ture. In the dining-room we continued to use 
our green furniture with white walls and the 
green curtains, but the main room of the house, 
which was supposed to be used as a living- 
room, we called ironically "the sun parlor" be- 
cause no ray of sunlight ever entered it. In 
addition to that fact it had been papered with 
dark green expensive paper which the landlord 
refused to change. Rather than assume that 
expense ourselves, not knowing how long we 
should be in the house, we made the most of the 
other room on the first floor, by doing it in a 
color scheme of browns and tones of yellow, so 
as to forget the ugly oak woodwork as much as 
possible. The walls were a golden brown car- 



IMPROVING THE RENTED HOUSE 23 

tridge paper, so I got hangings of sunf ast ma- 
terial to match the walls. The mottled blue 
and yellow tiles I got rid of by covering 
them with cream-colored alabastine. Several 
willow chairs, flowers, pictures in tones of 
brown and gold, and ornaments of brass, made 
of this a room suitable to use in receiving 
casual acquaintances, but our real living-room 
was upstairs. In the front of the house over- 
looking the park, and getting the sun nearly all 
day was a really pretty room with white wood- 
work. It was meant for a bedroom of course, 
but we had enough bedrooms without it, so we 
had gray paper put on the walls, and in it we 
used all of our choicest things. It was an un- 
conventional thing to do, I admit, and we took 
evil delight one day when a very conventional 
friend called on us, in showing him the *'sun 
parlor" and then making him come upstairs to 
our living-room. He simply looked bewil- 
dered, and went away thinking we were 
queer. 

We may have been queer, but to show that 
we had also been wise in not even trying to 
transform that dark grotto of a room at our 
own expense, in the course of another year we 
found ourselves living in Boston, 



CHAPTER III 
A Practical Plan for the Newly Married 

WITH eggs at sixty cents a dozen, butter 
fifty cents a pound, and rents propor- 
tionately high, and with no hope that they 
will be any lower, is it strange that the young 
man who earns a moderate salary should look 
upon establishing a home of his own as a 
formidable undertaking? What is to be done 
about it? Are young people going to continue 
to enter upon long engagements and live in 
that unnatural state until enough money can be 
saved to start housekeeping in the conventional 
way? Or are they going to start out in their 
life together on a very small scale, regardless 
of what their more fortunate or less sensible 
friends are doing? I think I have found a 
solution to this problem, but it applies only to 
those who care more for one another than they 
care for unenlightened public opinion. 

The girl must be willing to do a certain 

amount of housework each day. She will have 

24 



PRACTICAL HOUSEKEEPING 25 

to use her head, her heart and her hands, but 
by following my plan she will avoid the count- 
less pitfalls which her friends who start out 
with false standards are sure to encounter. 
The solution I have to offer was arrived at 
quite by accident, as many good things are. 

Being perfect strangers in Boston we de- 
cided to spend a year looking for a place to 
build our permanent home. Meanwhile we 
wanted our time to be as free as possible, so 
we took an apartment of two rooms and bath 
in a desirable neighborhood. Although we 
were given housekeeping privileges we started 
by having all but our breakfast out. Little by 
little we took more and more of our meals in 
our tiny dining-room, and when our year was 
up we were too comfortably established to de- 
sire anything better for some time to come. 
We were regularly keeping house in the two 
rooms which a year before we had looked upon 
as merely a temporary expedient. 

The plan of the little apartment shows that 
we had plenty of light and ventilation; good 
closets and an open fireplace. Of our furni- 
ture two single beds, three comfortable chairs, 
a roomy table and a double student lamp were 
the essentials. It is, of course, important to 



26 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



have plenty of drawer space, but if it is possible 
to combine several pieces of furniture in one so 
much the better. This we did by using a sec- 
retary, which is not only a very attractive piece 
of furniture but is also bookcase, desk and chest 
of drawers all in one. Balancing it in color 





Designs that show what can be accomplished with two rooms 

and a bath 

and shape I had another chest of drawers on 
the opposite side of the fireplace, and still an- 
other combination desk and chest of drawers 
against the north wall. This provided a place 
for each of us to write and keep personal be- 
longings. 

Against the east wall between the two deep- 
set windows we had our long, narrow green 
table, a winged chair at either end, so placed 
as to get the best light from the windows in 
the daytime, and from the lamp in the center 
of the table at night. 

Just opposite the table on the west wall were 



PRACTICAL HOUSEKEEPING 27 

our two beds one above the other in the day- 
time, the lower one being drawn out into the 
room at night. The wooden frame painted 
green, the green cover and valance that were 
used, gave the appearance of what has come 
to be called a "day bed." 

Two wicker chairs, another large, winged 
chair, with green Scotch rug, filet lace cur- 
tains drawn tight across the window, and wash- 
able chintz overhanging that served us in our 
other houses, completed the furnishings of this 
combination living- and sleeping-room. 

As the plan shows, the other room was small 
and of very awkward shape. We had it pa- 
pered in a striped white paper, that being the 
background for which our green furniture was 
originally designed. Our landlord had a small 
sink put into one corner, having it built high, 
at my request, so that I need not stoop over 
when washing dishes. A few shelves and a 
two-burner gas stove with an adjustable oven 
completed our kitchen equipment. 

Up to this time, although I had been inter- 
ested in cooking, I had never given the conven- 
ient arrangement of my kitchen any special 
thought. In our other two houses we had had 



28 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

the regulation kitchens, which I took as a 
matter of course. As I think of them now, 
they were too large and most inconvenient. 
As I always kept a maid, I had not noticed the 
unnecessary steps that had to be taken in the 
course of a day. Here in this tiny apartment, 
I was therefore confronted with an entirely 
new problem, which brought all of my powers 
of invention into play : how to make a complete 
kitchen in a space that could not measure more 
than thirty by forty inches outside the stove 
and sink. This kitchen went through many 
stages during the next few years, but in the 
end it approached perfection. I started out 
with a two-plate gas-stove with an adjustable 
oven, which did very well for ''light-house- 
keeping," but was inconvenient when we found 
ourselves having all of our meals at home. I 
also started without an ice-chest, but ended by 
getting one about a yard long with a flat top. 
This served as a table under the plate rack that 
hung on the wall midway between the kitchen 
and dining-room end of this small, odd-shaped 
room. To match the rest of the furniture, I 
painted the ice-chest a blue green, and thus 
transformed a commercial object of grained 
brown paint into an ornamental piece of fur- 




Note the shelf beside the stove and the telephone beyond 




The sink and stoz'e are plaeed to receive the best light 




The two sides of a buffet that serves as a screen between the 
dining-room and kitchen ends of the same room 



PRACTICAL HOUSEKEEPING 29 

niture, that fitted into the general scheme of 
the room. 

The space measuring thirty by forty inches 
was inclosed on one side by a high green kitchen 
cabinet, which acted as a screen between the 
kitchen and dining-room and afforded a 
shelf and a space on the kitchen side for hang- 
ing the numerous cooking utensils. The 
fourth side of the minute kitchen was formed 
by a chiffonier, also painted green. On top 
of it stood all the plates and bowls I used. 
The back I had painted white, and on it hung 
my matchbox, aprons and holders; under it 
stood my white enameled bread-box. The 
drawers were used for linen, drug supplies, 
tools, papers, etc. 

Under the sink a galvanized pail acted as 
kitchen waste basket, except on cleaning days, 
when it did duty as scrub-bucket. Then there 
was a small garbage can into which I fitted 
a newspaper every morning. As the can was 
emptied each night by the janitor and boiled 
out each week with soda, it never smelled 
badly, and having it so near saved many steps. 
Over the sink white canisters contained sugar, 
flour for sauces, coffee, tea and salt. Season- 
ings stood on a tiny shelf near the stove. Cov- 



30 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

ered canisters on the shelves contained cereals 
and flour. So it was possible for me to pre- 
pare a meal without moving from one spot, 
and to put it steaming hot on our dining-table 
less than four feet away in the same room. 

The reason this all appealed to me very 
strongly is because in doing my own cooking, 
which I love to do, I may have all sorts of at- 
tractive cooking utensils. 

As there was an excellent bakery near by 
where they made delicious whole-wheat bread, 
and delivered French rolls and English muffins 
in time for breakfast, there was no need to do 
any baking. But aside from these articles I 
did every bit of my own cooking, using very 
little canned food, but all the year round 
fresh, green vegetables, fresh meat, eggs, ce- 
reals and fish. Fish was impossible until I 
adopted paper-bag cooking; after that we 
often had it, and it was impossible to detect 
any odor from it while it was cooking. 

It was better to plan simple meals ; but that 
did not do away with having guests, preferably 
one or two at a time. We had guests very 
often, and they seemed to enjoy getting away 
from their stereotyped routine and always 
seemed to envy us our cozy little place. 



PRACTICAL HOUSEKEEPING 31 

All the rest of our miniature establishment 
was easily managed. The good strong woman 
who did our laundry work came in two morn- 
ings each week, her duties being to keep the 
floors, windows and bathroom clean. She 
changed the beds, polished all of the brass, 
copper and silver, boiled out the garbage pail, 
and cleaned the enameled sink and the zinc 
under the stove. The floor of the smaller room 
was scrubbed twice a week, so it was always 
immaculate. All of this, including the laun- 
dry work, was done for a fixed and very rea- 
sonable price each week. 

My own paii; of the work took about two 
hours each day. While we were eating break- 
fast the beds were airing. After the dishes 
were washed I made the beds and arranged the 
room so that it became a living-room once more, 
with no suggestion of a sleeping-room about 
it. I then filled the lamp, did the dusting, made 
out menus for the day, did any ordering that 
was necessary — and my housework was done, 
except the preparation for our two simple 
meals, which took but very little time. The 
rest of the day I had with a perfectly free mind 
for occupations that had no connection what- 
ever with housework. 



32 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

There are certain temperamental requisites 
for successfully living in this small way. 
There must be a desire on both sides for sim- 
plicity and for order. It must also be borne 
well in mind that a home of two rooms is no 
place for unpleasant moods, so they may not 
frequently be indulged in. 

On the other hand, housekeeping in minia- 
ture for at least the first year of married Hfe 
has tremendous value as a preparation for 
housekeeping on a larger scale. It is a period 
in which two persons may gradually learn to 
cooperate in keeping accounts and in develop- 
ing a system of management for use all through 
their lives. 

The single fact of having such a limited 
amount of room teaches the futility of accumu- 
lating unnecessary things. All articles stored 
away should be carefully listed and filed for 
reference in case of urgent need. One gets to 
hate the sight of useless objects about a room, 
for they only add to one's care without con- 
tributing either to beauty or comfort. Then, 
too, there is nothing like doing one's work for 
a time, to help one later in planning work for 
servants. One comes to know how long it 



PRACTICAL HOUSEKEEPING 33 

takes to do things thoroughly and avoids ex- 
acting of a maid more than she can do. 

On the whole I feel sure that young people 
starting out in this way will always have rea- 
son to look back with delight to their first ex- 
perimental year together, particularly if they 
have spent it in planning what they really want 
their permanent home to be, in developing 
their tastes and ideals and in establishing their 
individuality, instead of drifting along with 
the current and being like everybody else. 

It was while we were living in this small 
apartment that Mr. Bok, the editor of the 
Ladies' Home Journal, came to see us. He 
had heard that I had a genius for making a 
complete home on the smallest possible scale, 
so he came to see for himself. When I had 
showed him everything, ending with my little 
kitchen, he laughed and said, " Well, if you 
can do this for yourselves, you are just the one 
to do the same sort of thing for the hundreds 
of women who write to us for advice." Thus 
began my editorial experience, practically from 
that moment. 



CHAPTER IV 

How I Furnished Our New House 

FOR four years my husband and I lived 
very comfortably in this apartment. We 
liked it in the winter, but as soon as spring 
was in the air we longed for a garden. All 
of our holidays were spent in search of the 
right place to build an all-the-year home, and 
many evenings in making plans for a house 
which we wanted simple, comfortable, con- 
venient, cheerful, and individual and to face so 
that each room would have sunlight at some 
time of the day. 

Just a year ago, in answer to an especially 
urgent call of the country, we seem almost to 
have been led to a site so exactly right in every 
way as to admit of no further doubts. We 
selected an architect who has a strong feeling 
for the picturesque, combined, curiously 
enough, with an ability for planning conven- 
iences. The result is a nine-roomed house of 
rough, cream-colored stucco, distinctly Eng- 

34 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 35 

lish in character, with its long sloping roof 
lines, built-in chimneys topped by red chimney- 
pots, numerous casement windows that open 
outward, and others with bluish-green shut- 
ters. The outside doors and the gate, which 
opens through a stucco wall, are also painted 







EI 



DtNn^G-Poot-t 




ITAt-x- 7^\ 



cdlit.aife 



^ OrncE 



The ground plan of a nine-roomed suburban home 

green, while the paths, the little front stoop, 
and the floor of the porch which opens out from 
the living-room are all of ordinary red brick, 
which repeats the red of the chimney-pots. All 
of our own ideas were carefully incorporated 
into the plans, so the result is thoroughly satis- 
factory to us. 

I have described the general character of 
the outside of the house, because by it was de- 



36 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



termined in a large measure the treatment of 
the interior. For example : there is a tiny ves- 
tibule which helps to keep out the east winds 
in the winter, but since the front door is usually 
open in warm weather the vestibule is made 
a continuation of the outside of the house, by 
having walls, ceiling and woodwork painted 



pORCK 



Bed Room 





GoeStJ^om 



GvxsTRjon 



\ IsJ 



The second floor of the nine-roomed house 

cream white, the floor being tiled with bluish- 
green, hexagonal tiles to match the front door 
as nearly as possible. This vestibule is too 
small to contain any furniture, but as a wall 
decoration there is a Delia Robbia lunette of 
brightly colored porcelain. A glass door sep- 
arates the vestibule from the hall, and as a 
curtain for this door there is a panel of cream- 
colored crepe, with insertions of filet lace. 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 37 

As the hall in our house is merely a passage- 
way, not a room in which one ever spends much 
time, we decided to have on the walls a decora- 
tive paper in a Chinese design showing wee 
islands with bluish-green willow trees, tiny 
pagodas, vases of flowers, swimming ducks 
and flying birds, all on a white background 
shot with silver — the gayest little design im- 
aginable. There are enough touches of black 
in the design to make it possible to have the 
hand-rail of the banisters, the hft-leaf table, 
the mirror and shadow-boxes above it, as well 
as the electric fixtures, all in black lacquer. 

The runners in the lower and upper halls 
are alike; of a Chinese tile design of darkest 
blue on a neutral groimd. The large case- 
ment window halfway up the stairs has cur- 
tains of cream-colored crepe close to the glass 
with over-curtains of rose-colored, sunf ast ma- 
terial. On the ledge of this window there is 
always some sort of plants or bulbs ; the white 
pottery jar that stands on the landing of the 
stairs also usually contains either a plant, flow- 
ers, or green things from the woods. 

The woodwork in the hall, as in all of the 
downstairs rooms, is painted a deep cream 
color; the ceilings, which are only seven and a 



38 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

half feet high all through the house, are tinted 
a cream white. The floors are of oak, waxed 
and polished. 

To the left of the door as one enters the 
hall, and opening from it by a pair of French 
doors, is the living-room. This room faces 
east, south and west, so on the walls I have used 
a grayish-tan fabric paper with a glint of gold 
in it. On the floor there are only two oriental 
rugs in tones of deep blue and rose color. 
Close to the glass in all the windows, as well 
as at the French doors that open onto the 
porch, I have draw-curtains of thin unbleached 
muslin, edged with a narrow cream fringe. 
The over-curtains are of a rather heavy silky 
material in a dull grayish rose color, which 
harmonizes well with the mahogany furniture, 
and the dull red bricks, and hearth-tiles of the 
fireplace. The electric fixtures, andirons, fire 
irons, and other small furnishings of this room 
are in burnished brass. 

A feature of the living-room, and of the 
other rooms of our house, are the window 
shelves for plants, which we had made for all 
of the windows. Nearly all of these shelves 
are six inches wide, but in the bay window at 
the east end of the living-room the shelf is much 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 39 

wider than this, and is used not only for plants 
and bulbs, but for books and magazines as well. 
The sun pours into this window the greater 
part of the day, so we have two large winged 
chairs here with their backs to the hght, for 
daytime reading. Over the back of each chair 
is an electric side-wall light, so that one may 
read at night without changing the position of 
the chairs. 

In the center of the floor is a plug to which 
is attached our double student lamp, in which 
we used to burn oil. Two other base plugs for 
lamps, two side lights besides the ones in the 
bay window, and four wall sconces holding 
twelve wax candles make it possible to light 
the room brilliantly, when entertaining, with- 
out the use of center ceiling lights, always so 
unbecoming and so undesirable for ordinary 
use. 

There are only a few pictures in this room, 
mainly Japanese prints that repeat the colors 
in the rugs and other furnishings. The only 
piece of built-in furniture is a bookcase extend- 
ing to the ceiling and occupying a space that 
could not be used for any other piece of furni- 
ture. The open shelves bring the books on 
the level of the eye, thus making them an im- 



40 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

portant part of the decoration of the room. 
Beneath the open shelves are three shelves for 
magazines, enclosed by drop doors. 

The two pairs of French doors opening into 
the hall and dining-room have curtains of 
cream-colored crepe gathered between rods 
placed at top and bottom of the glass. 

THE DINING-ROOM 

A small impressionist painting of which we 
are very fond determined the treatment of our 
dining-room. We wanted for once to have this 
picture hung alone in a room, and as a living- 
room cannot be too restrained in treatment we 
felt that the dining-room would be the best 
place to have it. The colors in the picture are 
tones of greenish blue and cream color, with 
touches of rose, so as a background for it we 
had the rough plaster of the walls and ceiling, 
the woodwork, as well as the moldings set on 
to panel the wall spaces and ceiling, all painted 
alike with many coats of oil paint in a very 
deep cream color. On the west side of the 
room there are three casement windows to- 
gether, projecting out about a foot. A twelve- 
inch shelf placed beneath the windows, is al- 
ways filled with plants or bulbs. The curtains 




This syiiniictrical arrangeinent is not too restrained for a 

dining-rooni 




Decorated rag rugs and French prints hung zvith ribbon 
add color to this room 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 41 

are very simple : merely two side strips of blu- 
ish-green sunfast material joined by a narrow 
valance run onto the same rod between them. 
The panels at either side of the windows have 
as a decoration strips of Chinese embroidery 
mounted on bluish-green gauze. Some of this 
same Chinese silk gauze is used on the table 
between meals, with a centerpiece of fruit or 
flowers. Opposite the windows is a pair of 
French doors curtained with the same material 
as the window hangings, and at either side of 
them is a small shelf holding a pot of English 
ivy on a trellis. The furniture of this room 
is of mahogany in the Hepplewhite design, the 
shield-back chairs having seats covered with 
bluish-green leather. The four side-wall lights 
are finished in silver to harmonize with the old 
silver service which ornaments the sideboard. 
Four candles in silver candlesticks are used on 
the table at night. For general use our dishes 
are of the plain green Sedgi ware; service 
plates and plates for special courses having a 
design of birds, very similar in character to the 
design of the hall paper. We use no rug, 
merely a polished floor which is very easily 
kept clean, and which really gives a more pleas- 
ing effect. 



42 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

THE KITCHEN 

Of all the rooms in our house the kitchen 
seems to make the most general appeal, and I 
think that is because I thoroughly enjoy ar- 
ranging a kitchen. First of all, I like to make 
everything as convenient as possible, and then 
I like to make the room as picturesque and 
amusing as possible. While I do not want 
this room to be cluttered with a lot of mean- 
ingless things, I do feel that it is legitimate 
to have a few purely decorative objects which 
have no other purpose than to make the kitchen 
smile at one instead of frowning, as so many 
kitchens do. 

As we live in the country and have an all- 
gas stove, we have a white kitchen ; that is, the 
walls and woodwork are painted white. The 
sink and drain-boards are of white enamel. 
Directly above the sink are two large casement 
windows and an electric fixture, which give 
light in the daytime and after dark, not only 
for dishwashing and the preparation of food, 
but for the actual cooking as well, the light 
falling over one's left shoulder when at the 
stove. 

At the left of the sink and hanging above 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 43 

the drain-board I have the utensils, such as a 
dish mop, soap shaker, plate-scraper, bottle 
brush and soap dish, while on the right are 
metal and glass measuring cups, lemon 
squeezer, tea strainer. Small sauce pans, 
spoons, eggbeater, grater, skewers, sieves, cof- 
fee pot, and canisters that are normally used 
near the sink, are within easy reach. I find it 
convenient to have a low bench near the sink 
on which to keep an enameled pail with a cover, 
which is used for waste and emptied once a 
day into the garbage can in the yard, then 
scalded. On this same bench I keep the enam- 
eled dish pan and the drainer. 

At the right of the stove I have a shelf, quite 
low, and on it are canisters containing salt, 
sugar, tea, cocoa, and flour for sauces. 
Matches, holders, a spatula, and other utensils 
that one needs when working at the stove are 
right at hand, even though they are duplicated 
in other parts of the room. A shelf that is 
a part of the stove holds a salt shaker, pepper 
grinder, and a bottle of paprika, so that the 
ordinary seasonings are never out of reach. A 
large dresser contains all supplies on the 
shelves, while below, in ample cupboards, heavy 
pots for occasional use are kept. 



44. THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

The curtains at the windows are made of un- 
bleached linen crash, with borders of Russian 
darned work, in a block design. 

Bright-colored German transparencies hang 
in the windows above the sink, and on a narrow 
rail all around the room is a row of decorative 
plates and other pieces of gaily colored china. 
This rail is edged with narrow blue and white 
lace paper, and below it hang copper dishes and 
Brittany bowls. Painted canisters for cakes 
and pies, a painted clock with weights, a chintz- 
lined tray hanging on the wall, pots of bright 
red geraniums on the window sills, and bluish- 
green chairs with roses painted on the backs, all 
help to make the kitchen a jolly place in which 
to work. The telephone is in the hall only a 
few feet from the center of the kitchen though 
separated from it by two doors. 

Just back of the kitchen, and opening out 
onto a back porch, is a little room where the ice 
chest is kept, with all utensils needed near it 
hanging on hooks, or placed on shelves conven- 
iently near. In this room the woodwork is all 
painted a bluish green like the outside door, 
even the ice chest and the bucket for the ice 
cream freezer having received a coat of the s^me 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 45 

paint, so that even in this most utihtarian room 
the colors harmonize and thus complete the pic- 
ture. 

ONE OF THE GUEST ROOMS 

Directly over the dining-room, and having a 
western exposure, is the guest room, which I 
particularly enjoyed furnishing. The walls, 
ceiling, woodwork, and furniture of this room 
are deep cream color. At top and bottom 
of the wall there is a very narrow border of 
turquoise blue ribbon and pink roses. The 
colors in this border are repeated in the oval 
braided rugs, which I made from strips of tur- 
quoise blue and cream-colored rags. 

The pictures are all French prints in tones 
of greenish blue, cream, and rose color, framed 
in dull gilt and suspended from the molding 
by turquoise blue ribbon. The four-post bed 
has a coverlet of turquoise blue and cream in a 
quaint design of roses and leaves. The dress- 
ing table cover, as well as the cover to the bed- 
side stand and the Italian linen towels, all have 
cross stitch designs of baskets of flowers. The 
toilet articles on the dressing table are of ivory 
which has taken on a rich color like the walls, 



46 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

while the washstand set being of clear glass 
looks as if it too, matched the room exactly. 
At the windows, besides dark green shades that 
are used only at night, I have Dutch or double 
sash curtains of unbleached muslin edged with 
cream fringe, with over-curtains of turquoise 
blue linen, held back with bands of faded chintz. 
The electric fixtures at either side of the dress- 
ing table are finished in cream white enamel, 
Salmon pink geraniums on the window sills, a 
bonnet box covered with paper like that on the 
walls, and trimmed with the same little ribbon 
borders, and a door knocker of green bronze in 
the shape of a charming angel figure with long 
tapering wings, are the small furnishings for 
this room which distinguish it from the other 
sleeping rooms. 

THE BATHROOM 

The bathroom, which is at the head of the 
stairs, has walls and woodwork painted with 
white oil paint. The floor is of white hexag- 
onal tiles, the fixtures, even those of the elec- 
tric lights, are of white enamel. At the win- 
dow there is a white sash curtain, with over- 
curtains and valance of blue and white Japa- 
nese toweling. The blue is repeated in a rag 



FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE 47 

rug on the floor, and in a single wall decora- 
tion: a porcelain "Bambino," white on a bright 
blue ground. 

THE maid's room 

On the third floor there is a pretty room with 
sloping sides and dormer windows. The wood- 
work is the natural pine varnished, so in it I 
carried out a yellow and white color scheme, 
having a ceiling paper with a tiny conventional 
design in yellow on a white ground used on 
walls and ceiling both. The curtains are of 
chintz in a design of small yellow roses and 
green leaves. The rugs are in two tones of 
brown ; the furniture, with the exception of the 
plain white iron bed, is in brown also. Sev- 
eral pictures in tones of brown, yellow, and 
green, help to make the maid's room as inviting 
as any room in the house. 

THE OFFICE 

On the first floor of our house, there is an 
extra room, which does not open into any other 
room and which at the same time is accessible 
to all of them. It has one window to the east 
and two to the north, and it is in this well- 
lighted room that I did my work for the Jour- 



48 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

not. Here I had my files, my reference books, 
my samples, my typewriter, everything 
that I needed to do my work comfortably, so 
as not to have the "office" atmosphere reach 
any other part of the house. Each day after I 
had finished telhng my correspondents what to 
do with their houses, I closed the door of my of- 
fice room, and passed out into my own dear 
home, with the hope that I had succeeded in 
helping other women to get an atmosphere of 
simple beauty and comfort into theirs. 



PABT TWO 



INTRODUCTION 

The average book on the subject of house 
furnishing and decoration is of use only to 
those who can afford to employ experts to 
decorate their walls, prepare their floors and 
woodwork, upholster their furniture, and give 
advice on the selection of rugs, hangings, pic- 
tures, lighting fixtures, and the countless other 
things that require much thought in the equip- 
ment of every house. 

It may not be generally known that less than 
ten per cent, of the women in the United States 
can afford to keep even one servant. The 
other ninety per cent, not only do all or most 
of their own housework, but when their houses 
are to be equipped they must use inexpensive 
furnishings and do the actual work of finishing 
the woodwork, floors, walls, and furniture 
themselves. Their home-loving instinct gives 
them enough strength and enthusiasm for this 
work, but too often the knowledge of the easiest 
way to go about the work, as well as the im- 

51 



52 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

agination necessary for a really charming re- 
sult, is lacking. 

My eyes were opened to these facts during 
the years in which I served as editor of "The 
Little House'* department of the Ladies' 
Home Journal. Through the thousands of 
letters that came to me from women in all 
parts of the world, all of which I answered per- 
sonally, I was brought into intimate touch with 
the home-making problems of many who, ex- 
cept for this free service, had no way of get- 
ting much-needed advice. Often the question 
of money was not involved, but the writers 
lived in such isolated places that it was impos- 
sible to get professional help. Even their pur- 
chases had to be made from samples and cata- 
logues. 

The following extracts from answers that 
some of my letters of advice called forth, speak 
for themselves : 

"I am going to follow your ideas almost to 
the letter as you seem to have caught the spirit 
of my real need." 

"I have already arranged the furniture as 
you suggested and the room looks like a differ- 
ent place." 

"I have continued to use the old walnut set 



INTRODUCTION 53 

but have used the chintz and the color you sug- 
gested for the walls and the room is lovely." 

"I feel I am indebted to you for life. You 
gave me so many new ideas. My ugly fire- 
place is a thing of the past, as I followed your 
advice and it worked beautifully." 

"You have selected just the colors for per- 
fect harmony in my room. How you, so far 
away, can tell so quickly what the color scheme 
should be, when I here in the room could not 
picture it to my satisfaction, is a mystery." 

"You would be well rewarded for your 
trouble could you see how attractive our din- 
ing-room looks. I followed your advice 
closely ; had tables made of pine, used the Japa- 
nese toweling for curtains and covers, and the 
whole thing cost less than ten dollars." 

"Your letter quite transformed my whole 
vision of the nursery about which I wrote you. 
I shall follow every suggestion, and I know the 
result will be the prettiest, most charming nur- 
sery imaginable." 

"I have already started on my dining-room 
curtains and can close my eyes and see that 
pretty room as it will look in a few weeks, due, 
dear lady, to your kind helpfulness." 

From a bride who married a poor man, and 



54 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

from a large house went to live in a few rooms. 
Her sisters, who had both married men with 
money, were unable to help her with advice as 
to how to live in her small quarters. 

*'Your personal experience helps me a lot, 
and I dare say I shall become so wedded to few 
rooms that I shall be pitying my less fortunate 
sisters." 

Should this book fall into the hands of the 
sort of person from whom I frequently re- 
ceived letters — the person to whom "money is 
no object" — she will probably be struck by the 
obviousness of much that I have to say, so for 
her benefit I quote a letter which is typical of 
hundreds I received: 

"I am about to be married, and having 
worked in an office ever since I left school I 
have had httle chance to learn much about a 
house. Now that I am to have one of my own, 
I want it to be a real home, so I turn to you for 
advice. My husband's salary will be $75 a 
month. Could you send me a list of furniture, 
linen, china, and kitchen utensils that will be 
necessary for a five-roomed house?" 

After making out numerous lists of equip- 
ment in accordance with salaries of from $50 a 
month upward, I finally put them into concrete 



INTRODUCTION 55 

form, in a loose-leafed pamphlet, called "The 
Little House," the amplified substance of 
which I give in Book II of this volume. 

The following letter contained in each pam- 
phlet expresses its purpose : 

THE LADIES' HOME JOURNAL 

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 
PHILADELPHIA 

EDITORIAL ROOMS 

Dear Madam: 

In answer to your request for suggestions this 
booklet is sent to you, to explain the uses of the va- 
rious rooms of a small house and to give a list of 
appropriate furnishings for those rooms. 

The prices given will enable you to adjust your 
selections to your own circumstances. A house fur- 
nished with the cottage furniture will be in as good 
taste as one furnished in the most expensive way. 
The important thing is to have your home honest. 
Do not select cheap imitations of expensive furnish- 
ings. By giving attention to line, color and com- 
fortable arrangement, the simplest furnishings will 
produce delightful results. 

As each house is a law unto itself, you will be 
wise, when selecting its equipment, not to be governed 
by prevailing fashions nor by what your friends or 
neighbors are using in their homes. After all, the 
thing which gives a house charm is its individuality, 



56 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

so do not feel that it must be completely furnished at 
the outset. Let it grow with your needs, that in the 
end it may be an expression of the family life lived 
within it. 

Cordially yours, 

Lilian Bayliss Green, 
The Little House Editor. 



CHAPTER I 

Suggestions for Furnishing 

the vestibule 

THE only furniture necessary in a vesti- 
bule is a rack for umbrellas. The walls 
should be painted with oil paint in some warm 
color, and the floor should be tiled or covered 
with inlaid linoleum in tile or mosaic design. 

If the vestibule serves also as the only hall 
it should contain, in addition to the above- 
named article, a rug, a small table or chair and 
a mirror. 

THE HALL 

Through the front door one gets one's first 
impression of the occupants of a house. The 
furnishings of the hall should, therefore, be 
carefully chosen. It is a passageway rather 
than a room and requires very little furniture. 

The walls may be done in a landscape paper 
if one wishes to make the room appear larger, 
or in plain Colonial yellow if a bright effect is 
desired. 

57 



58 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Furniture . . ^ 

El « g go J2 O^ « 0-2 

P 3 eS r^.^ . r^^ r^TS"'' 

^o.a rt-s-^ PI'S si o'sog 

o.Sm rPao op. ft 5 Oftft© 

Table .- ....... $3.75 $6.T5 $8.25 $9.75 

Mirror ....... 3.00 3.00 3.40 3.75 

Straight chair .... 2.75 4.50 5.50 6.50 

Chest ....... 13.50 13.50 16.50 19.50 

Sofa 

Grandfather's clock . . . 60.00 60.00 

Settle 18.00 18.00 22.50 27.00 

Telephone stand .... 6.75 6.75 8.25 9.75 

THE LIVING-ROOM 

In houses or apartments of but five or six 
rooms there is usually but one living-room. 
This room should represent the tastes which the 
members of the family have in common. The 
first requisite of such a room is that it should be 
restful. It is therefore advisable to use a wall 
covering that is plain in effect. Tan or cream 
is good in a room that is inclined to be dark; 
gray-gi^een or gray itself in a very bright liv- 
ing-room. One large rug in two tones of one 
color, preferably the same color as the walls, is 
better than a figured rug for this room. Avoid 
using rocking-chairs in the living-room. They 
give a restless look and take up more than their 
share of space. It is better to have comforta- 



A buffet made from 
the top of a kitchen 
•ahinet and a kitchen 
table 



The silver service 
harmonizes zvell zvith 
this Heppleivhite side- 
board 



Attractive furniture 
can be made by a car- 
penter and painted at 
home 



. . "■ \ ■ 


w-^"""^ 


■■■"'"*»"•""" 1 


k 2 


«. *. r 


• ^ 


! 




SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 59 



ble armchairs, upholstered in plain material, 
or willow chairs with cushions of chintz, if this 
material is used as curtains. A roomy table 
with a good reading lamp on it is essential, 
while open book-shelves, a writing desk or 
table, a sofa, a sewing table and a piano are 
all appropriate furnishings for this room. 

Plants are always appropriate to use in 
sunny windows, and pictures of common inter- 
est, framed in polished wood or dull gilt frames, 
help to make the living-room attractive. Use 
very little bric-a-brac. Nothing which does 
not actually contribute to the beauty of the 
room should be allowed to find place there. 



Furniture 






Table 

Chair 

Sofa . . 

Armchair 

Desk chair 

Desk . . 

Bookcase 

Sewing table 

Tea table 

Footstool 

Wood box or rack 

Piano 

Music cabinet . 



el ■ 
•f o 

e] O.S 

o.St3 

$4.50 
17.00 



2.75 
9.75 
9.00 
5.00 
1.50 
2.25 

200.00 
6.75 



s® 

I— t> w 
CS ^ 

OP.O 

$15.00 
22.50 

20.00 
6.75 

19.50 
9.00 
5.00 
1.50 
3.75 
5.00 
250.00 
6.75 



w o S 
03 X a> 0) 

$17.00 
25.00 



7.75 

21.75 

11.25 

6.00 

2.00 

3.00 



(O 



tic I 



8.25 



w o 

O P C8 

$50.00 
45.00 
55.00 
38.00 
15.00 
90.00 

100.00 

17.00 

35.00 

6.00 

5.00 

450.00 
28.00 



60 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 





•mad( 
itvire 
ik. 


i 


1 




•« fl s 


S a 


o A 




a *^ ° 


u u 


-5 »- 




is aa 


U3 


? ^ 




w— 


3*" 


^- 


Table 


. . $35.00 


$59.00 


$12.00 


Chair 


. . 30.50 


50.00 


12.75 


Sofa 


. . 68.00 


100.00 


23.50 


Armchair .... 


. . 32.00 


65.00 


9.75 


Desk chair .... 


. . 4.75 


15.00 


8.25 


Desk 


. . 28.00 


90.00 


37.50 


Bookcase .... 


. . 25.00 


100.00 


13.50 


Sewing table . 


. . 18.50 




13.50 


Tea table .... 


. . 12.00 




7.25 


Footstool .... 


. . 4.50 


6.00 


5.25 


Wood box or rack . 


. . 5.00 


5.00 


3.50 


Piano 


. . 450.00 






Music cabinet . • . 


. . 10.00 







When the most important room in a house 
faces north, its decoration should be planned 
first and should govern that of the adjoining 
rooms. The best color for the walls of a north 
room is yellow in a tone ranging from a deep 
cream color to tan or a deep pumpkin color; 
any shade, in fact that will give the illusion of 
sunlight. By using thought, such rooms may 
be very cheerful indeed. In rooms that are 
sunny, it is possible to use any color except one 
that fades easily. 

A favorite way to treat a living-room that 
opens into a dining-room by folding or French 
doors, is to have the walls of both rooms alike, 
in some plain color. The rug in the living- 
room should also be plain in several shades 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 61 

darker than the walls ; the hangings and chair 
covers may be of chintz. In the dining-room 
since it is best to use a rug with a small figure, 
the hangings should be of a plain color to em- 
phasize the predominating color in the living- 
room chintz. This brings the two rooms into 
perfect harmony, without having them just 
alike. 

THE BEDROOM 

The first requisite in the furnishing of this 
room is that it be fresh and clean. 

Unless the room must be used as a study 
or sitting-room in the daytime the furniture 
should be reduced as much as possible. The 
walls should be light in color, and the wood- 
work white if possible. The furniture may 
also be white, although dull-finished mahogany 
in Colonial designs, with small rag rugs on the 
floor, makes a charming bedroom. One set of 
draw curtains, of figured chintz if the walls are 
plain, and of plain-colored material if the walls 
have a small figure, is enough for each win- 
dow. 

The furnishings of a young girl's bedroom 
should be carried out in her favorite color, and 
to the usual bedroom furniture should be added 



62 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

a desk, lamp, work table and bookshelves. 
The bedroom for a growing boy should be his 
own sitting-room and study as well: a place 
where he may entertain his friends, do his 
studying and develop his hobbies. The walls, 
hangings, couch cover, et cetera, should be very 
plain, as a boy usually has a collection of 
trophies which need the plainest sort of a back- 
ground in order to prevent the room from look- 
ing cluttered. Instead of the usual bed he 
should have an iron-framed couch, which in the 
daytime may be made up with a plain dark 
cover with cushions, to be used as a couch; a 
chiffonier, an armchair, bookshelves, writing 
table and one or two small rugs will complete 
the furnishings of the boy's bedroom. 



Furniture 



fa O O V ^ 



Bai ^°u ^2-sS 5 2-sS 

Bed . . . r. . . . $9.75 $16.50 $18.75 $21.00 

Mattress 3.35 16.00 16.00 16.00 

to to to to 

16.00 25.00 25.00 25.00 

Box spring ..... 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 

Crib (iron) 12.75 12.75 12.75 12.75 

Crib mattress .... 3.75 9.00 9.00 9.00 

Pillows (pair) .... 1.25 2.10 2.10 2.10 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 63 



t^vO tog mc3M 

^u V p) o el o^ 

So'* 'Ot:!-* tS'd'^ 

o.S« o*^® op, ft 5 

Bureau 9.75 22.50 25.00 

Washstand 1.50 2.00 2.75 

Dressing table .... 9.00 12.57 14.25 

Chiffenier (no mirror) . 9.00 12.00 14.25 

Chair 2.75 4.50 5.25 

Rocking-chair .... 2.75 6.75 7.75 

Waist box .... Home-made 2.50 3.50 

Desk 4.50 9.75 10.75 

Armchair 6.75 7.75 

Couch 5.00 13.25 

(iron frame) (box) 

Bookshelves .... Home-made 9.00 10.50 

Cheval glass 11.25 15.50 16.50 

Stoves 

Gas, $ 5.00 Wood . . $15.50 Franklin grate or 

Coal, 17.00 Wood or coal 25.50 wood or coal . 



© 



« 






« 3 a> «> 

^ u <3 a 

O P< Ph (U 

27.50 
3.50 

15.75 

16.50 
6.00 
8.75 
4.50 

11.75 
8.75 



12.00 
18.00 

andirons 
. $35.00 



9 

U 

88 >t 

P a 

OB C3 e3 

(U ea eS b 

.2 !=• ^ °*i'^ 

O P c8 p] »- ° 

Bed . . . . .1 . . . $55.00 $30.00 
Mattress 36.00 36.00 

Box spring r. 20.00 20.00 

Crib (iron) 12.75 12.75 

Crib mattress 9.00 9.00 

Pillows (pair) 6.00 5.25 

Bureau 75.00 50.00 

Washstand 6.00 10.00 

(enamel iron) 

Dressing table 55.00 26.00 

Chiffonier (no mirror) . . 100.00 39.00 

(High Boy) 



$56.00 
36.00 



20.00 



5.25 
67.50 



48.00 
60.00 



64 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Chair 10.00 6.50 8.00 

Rocking-chair 9.00 6.50 8.25 

Waist box 20.00 16.00 4.50 

Desk 60.00 20.00 28.50 

Armchair 24.00 8.00 7.50 

Couch 60.00 50.00 25.00 

Bookshelves (built in) 21.50 13.50 

Cheval glass 50.00 25.00 

Correct Articles to Use on a Bureau or Dress- 
ing Table 

Mirror, brush, comb, nailfile, buttonhook, 
pintray, shoehorn, powder-box, stud-box, pic- 
ture frames, small powder-box, clock, hair-re- 
ceiver. 

These may be of silver, ebony, tortoise shell, 
ivory or Parisian ivory. 

CORRECT ARTICLES FOR WASHSTAND 

In addition to regular toilet set of china or 
crystal this is the place for bottles of toilet 
water, talcum powder, tooth powder, medicine, 
etc. 

THE SEWESTG-ROOM 

Even in a small house there is sometimes an 
extra room which may be fitted up as a sewing- 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 65 

room in such a way as to be very convenient 
and practical, and at the same time so attractive 
as to serve as an extra bedroom occasionally. 
This room should be kept as light as possible 
and should be so furnished that it may be easily 
kept clean. 

Furniture 

Sewing machine with flat top to be used as a dressing 

table $20.00 

Chair 1.25 

Box couch 13.25 

Chiffonier 9.00 

Mirror against a door 11.25 

Low rocking-chair without arras 1.50 

Cutting table, box underneath. Tilt top to be used as 

a settle 6.75 

Clothespole 3.38 

THE DINING-ROOM 

The room in which the family assembles sev- 
eral times each day to enjoy its meals together 
should be the most cheerful room in the house. 

Because there is so much lovely blue-and- 
white china in use many persons feel that they 
want dining-rooms with blue walls. This is 
usually a mistake, as blue used in large quanti- 
ties absorbs the light and makes a room gloomy, 
particularly on dark days and at night. By 
using Colonial yellow on the walls, with hang- 
ings, rug and decorative china in blue and 
white, one has an almost ideal arrangement. 



66 



THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



There are many charming landscape and fol- 
iage papers on the market which, used without 

pictures against 
them, but with 
bulbs or plants 
blooming on the 
windowsills and 
with hangings 
of plain semi- 
transparent col- 
ored material, 

A plate rack easily made that can be make mOSt dc- 
used above a serving table ■,. •, , n -, 

light I ul rooms. 
Plate rails or racks will always be a solution 
for reducing the apparent height of an over- 
high ceiling. It is better to use a simple flat 
molding or paneling than to crowd a plate rail 
full of inharmonious objects. 




Furniture 



Table . . 
Chair . 
Armchair . 
Serving table 



'5^ >, 

u ^ O 
S 3 es 

cs o.s 

^- « 

$9.00 
2.75 
9.75 
8.95 



to * 
OftO 

$30.00 
4.50 
6.75 
9.00 



So© 
c? <=> i 

,2 >4 CIS 
O P,P< 0) 

$10.50 
5.50 

7.75 
10.50 



^ cs,ja 

w o a 

f3 - >^ 
.^•2 rt 

*co , .2 

— a * ® 

o 5; S la 
.s ftp,® 
o 
o 



2.00 

6.50 

8.75 

12.75 



$1 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 67 



u 

sis 

It u ^ 

pi o « 

Mid 

ffi'S <» 

■tJ _ OS 

Buffet ...... 18.00 

China closet .... 15.00 

Serving table on wheels 16.75 

Screen 3.75 

High chair .... 2.50 

Stoves 

Gas, $ 5.00 Wood. . $15.50 

Coal, 17.00 Wood or coal 25.50 





s.«« 


s^l 


s§ 


s^l 


^n 


.9 a 


.Sfrt"" 


j^a 




S"* rt 


03 •'^ d 


^ « 






«* f^ !h 


»nia 
odu 
inte 
ame 


mia 
odu 
inte 
ame 


S^^ u 


^ u <^ a 


.ii f- =3 rt 


&«o 


P<P4Q> 


p<p<l» 





Q 





27.50 


21.00 


24.00 


30.00 


34.50 


39.00 


16.75 


30.50 


34.00 


5.00 


4.50 


5.25 


2.50 


4.15 


5.50 


Franklin grate or 


andirons 


wood 


or coal . 


. $35.00 



to P^ 
P 

« 2 

O O c8 

Table ....... $85.00 

Chair 10.00 

Armchair 15.00 

Serving table 35.00 

Buffet 125.00 

China closet 60.00 

Serving table on wheels . 27.00 

Screen 25.00 

High chair 10.00 



d M o 

$21.00 
6.50 
10.00 
18.00 
34.00 
45.00 
27.00 
20.00 
9.00 



I 

$16.50 

8.25 

28.00 
82.50 

24.00 

8.00 



THE KITCHEN 

The room in which the average housekeeper 
spends the greater part of her time is usually 
the least attractive room in the house, whereas 
it should be — and we learn by visiting foreign 
kitchens it may be made — a picturesque set- 



68 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

ting for one of the finest arts — the art of cook- 
ery. 

The woodwork should be hght in color, the 
walls should be painted with oil paint, or cov- 
ered with washable material, this also in a light 
color. 



Furniture 

stoves— Gas $2.50, $10.00, $30.00 

Blue-flame kerosene 10.25 

Coal, wood, gas 56.00 

Coal and wood 49.75 

Small electric 33.00 

Table $2.10; $9.00 (drop leaf) ; $11.25 (white enamel on steel) 

Chair $1.87, $6.75 

Ice chest $7.00, $15.00, $40.00 (white enamel) 

Kitchen cabinet . . . $38.00; $39.00 (white enamel on steel) 
Linoleum 60c. square yard, printed; $1.60 square yard, inlaid 

INITIAL SUPPLY OF SMALL FURNISHINGS 



Small-sized ironing- 
board .... 
Small glass washboard 
Clothesline and pins 
2 irons, holder and 

stand .... 
2-gallon kerosene can 
Small bread board . 
Rack for dish towels 
6 large canisters . 
Wooden salt box . 
1 iron skillet . 

1 double boiler . 
Dish drainer . 

2 dishmops . 
Wire bottle washer 
Small rolling pin . 
Chopping machine . 
Large saucepan . 



3 graduated copper, 

$0.35 enameled or nickel- 

.35 handled dishes 

.15 2 covered earthenware 

or enameled casse- 

foles 

Q pie plates enameled 



.50 



.70 
.45 
.15 
.10 
.60 
.10 
.30 

1.00 
.25 
.10 
.10 
.10 

1.10 
.30 



1.50 

.20 

$1.00 



Alarm clock . . . 
Galvanized-iron scrub 

pail 30 

Small covered garbage 

pail 35 

Scrubbing brush . . . .20 
Broom and brushes . .60 
1 quart ice-cream 

freezer 1.75 

Roller for towel ... .10 
Bread box 50 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 69 

4 small canisters . . .40 3 graduated small 

3 sheet-iron pans to use saucepans 30 



as roasting pans 
Dishpan (fiber) . 
Plate scraper 
Soap shaker . 
Vegetable brush 
MuflBn tins 
Granite soup kettle 



.20 Glass butter jar . . .35 

.50 6 popover or custard 

.15 cups 30 

.10 Soapdish 25 

.05 Knives, forks, egg beat- 

.25 er, corkscrew, lemon 

.45 squeezer, etc. . . . 5.50 



THE NURSERY 

In describing the requisites of the nursery 
of a small house, I shall confine myself to a 
room that has to be used by the children both 
as a playroom and as a sleeping- and dressing- 
room as well, as it would be unreasonable to 
suppose that the average small house would 
have rooms enough to provide both a day and a 
night nursery which, however, is the ideal ar- 
rangement where possible. 

Such a room should have one or more sunny 
windows, with outside blinds which for the day- 
time nap may be closed, to make the room dark 
without keeping out the air. If possible there 
should be a fireplace, but that is not as neces- 
sary as the sun. The floor should be bare, so 
that it may be kept free from dust ; small rugs 
may be provided when the children wish to sit 
on the floor. The walls should be painted 
with oil paint if possible, in some light, at- 
tractive shade of cream, gray, or gray-green. 



70 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Simple draw-curtains of plain white, of chintz 
or of some plain-colored washable material, 
may be necessary to soften the light, but it is 
quite all right to leave the windows in this 
room free from hangings if preferred. A com- 
fortable winged chair, with a slip cover of gay 
flowered chintz, is a picturesque addition to this 
room, and one that a "grown-up" will appre- 
ciate when visiting the nursery. For the chil- 
dren, a low table, and a chair apiece, made of 
plain oiled wood preferably, will be required. 
After the crib stage has been passed, it is well 
to select a "day-bed" for this room, as it may be 
made up with a dark cover to be used in the 
daytime as a comfortable sofa. A chiffonier 
with plenty of drawers completes the neces- 
sary movable furniture, but every nursery 
should have low shelves and cupboards built 
for toys and books, if the room is to be kept 
neat, and if the children are to be taught to put 
things away after they have finished using 
them. If there is a little wall space left near 
the floor, it should be blackened, and enclosed 
by a molding. Such a stationary blackboard is 
a source of endless delight in early attempts at 
drawing, figure and letter making. 
As a wall decoration, instead of a permanent 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 71 

frieze of * 'Mother Goose" or "Alice in Wonder- 
land" pictures, which a child will in time out- 
grow, I suggest having parallel moldings about 
ten inches apart placed across at least one wall 
space. This space should be covered with glass 
between the moldings, the higher of which 
should have grooves cut at regular intervals to 
admit the insertion of pictures. These pic- 
tures may then be selected to suit the age of the 
child as well as the season of the year, and 
after serving this purpose they may be pasted 
in cambric scrap-books, to be kept as souvenirs 
of childhood, or passed along to other children 
for use in their nurseries. 

For each child there should be a ''growing 
stick": a piece of wood twice the width and 
more than twice the length of an ordinary yard 
stick, and marked in much the same way. At 
the top of each stick should be the initials and 
age date of the child, burned into the wood, and 
the stick should hang on a door casing by 
means of a hole bored into the top. On this 
stick a comparative record of growth may be 
kept, and if the family moves away these inter- 
esting records may be taken along. It is such 
little things as this which give a homelike at- 
mosphere to the family dwelling. 



72 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 
SOME "DON'ts" for THE AMATEUE DECORATOR 

On seeing the same mistakes repeated again 
and again, not only in the decoration of houses, 
but in tea rooms and club rooms as well, it is 
evident that the mind of the amateur decorator 
needs to be impressed with a few important 
"Don'ts." 

Don't have too many figured walls in the 
same house. 

Don't have figured walls in two adjoining 
rooms unless they are treated as one room and 
the same figure is used in both. 

Don't use figured hangings in a room with 
figured walls. 

Don't use more than one design of cretonne 
in the same room. 

Don't use figured rugs and figured hang- 
ings in the same room, even though the walls 
are plain. 

Don't hang pictures on a wall with a dis- 
tinct figure; have few ornaments and very 
plain ones in such a room. 

Don't use figured "glass" curtains and fig- 
ured overcurtains at the same window. One 
or the other should be plain. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURNISHING 73 

Don't use paper with a large figure in a 
small room. 

Don't use many different colors or figures 
on the walls of a small house or apartment. 
An effect of space will be obtained by having 
the walls in all the rooms done alike in some 
plain light color. The rooms may be made 
distinctive by, for example, having a symmet- 
rical arrangement of pictures in the hall; by 
having the walls of living-room and dining- 
room paneled; by using narrow borders in the 
bedrooms, and by having decorative china on 
a plate rack in the kitchen. 

Don't use a drop ceiling or a wide border 
in a room that is nine feet or less in height. 
In such a room the best treatment is to have 
the walls plain up to the angle of the ceiling, 
with a simple molding to match the rest of the 
woodwork. 

Don't use blue in large quantities; never on 
the walls of a north room. 

Don't use striped or large figured paper on 
the walls of a room with sloping ceilings. Use 
instead, a plain or small figured paper on walls 
and ceiling both, having neither molding nor 
border, where walls and ceiling meet. 



74 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Don't use much mission furniture in a house. 
Stationary pieces such as desks and bookcases 
are the least objectionable but pieces of furni- 
ture that must be moved about, should be of 
lighter weight and less clumsy to handle. 



CHAPTER II 

Lighting Fixtures 

WHEN planning one's own home it is 
comparatively easy to select and place 
the lighting fixtures to conform to the furnish- 
ings in each room and to the use to which the 
fixture is to be put, but in houses built to rent, 
the ignorance and lack of taste displayed in the 
lighting fixtures is appalling. Ghastly domes, 
inverted bowls, and flimsy, over-decorated brass 
fixtures are the rule, so placed that the light 
from them is not only most unbecoming, but 
practically useless. The cheaper the fixture, 
the more ornate it is, as a rule. 

Besides selecting fixtures as simple and in- 
conspicuous as possible, the following sugges- 
tions as to the placing of them in accordance 
with the requirements of each room may be of 
use to those who have given the subject little 
thought. 

In the vestibule it is correct to have either a 
side-wall or an overhead light. The hall is an 

75 



76 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

appropriate place for a decorative lantern of a 
design to harmonize with the general scheme 
of the room. As a lantern gives a softened 
light, it is well to have side lights in addition, 
especially at the head and foot of the stairs. 

In a living-room, library or music-room, 
there should be baseboard and floor plugs for 
lamps to be placed conveniently on tables, 
desks, or on the piano. Side-wall lights are 
usually sufficient for the general lighting of the 
room. Overhead hghts except in rooms with 
very high ceilings, are not needed, and even in 
high rooms they are seldom used except when 
entertaining in a formal way. 

The most attractive way to light the dining- 
room is to have side-wall lights for general 
lighting, with candles on the table at dinner at 
night. 

The kitchen is the one room in a house in 
which a strong light is desirable at all times. It 
is a laboratory, and everything here should be 
thought out in such a way as to f acihtate work. 
One of the most important things is to have 
plenty of light where it is needed and when it 
is needed. There should be a strong light di- 
rectly above the sink, and one above and at the 
left of the stove. There should be another in 



LIGHTING FIXTURES 77 

front of the ice chest and one in front of the 
supply cupboard. 

In a bathroom, a hght at either side of the 
mirror above the washstand is all that is re- 
quired, while in bedrooms there should be a 
light at either side of each dressing table or 
bureau, as well as a candle or lamp on a bedside 
table. Where electricity is used, there should 
be a light in each closet. Needless to say every 
flight of steps in the house should be well 
lighted. 

Having passed through a period in which 
leaded glass domes were rampant above the 
dining-room tables in nearly all rented houses 
and apartments, we are now in the midst of an 
epidemic of inverted alabaster bowls, used to 
conceal the light and to reflect it from the ceil- 
ing down into the room. There are some 
places in which this serves an admirable pur- 
pose, as for example in stores, railway stations, 
banks, and hotel corridors, where it is neces- 
sary to use light in the daytime, and where an 
illusion of daylight is to be desired. In the 
lighting of a private house, there are other 
things of greater importance than merely hav- 
ing as much hght as possible. Light is stimu- 
lating to the nerves, and too much of it coming 



78 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

from above dilates the pupils of the eyes and 
produces anything but the restful effect desired 
at the end of a day. We shall make no mistake 
if we allow ourselves in this respect to be gov- 
erned by nature, by using low lights after sun- 
down, with the light directed away from the 
eyes and focused on the book we are reading, 
the page we are writing, or the table on which 
our meal is served. 



CHAPTER III 
The Hanging of Curtains 

FROM the fact that fully a quarter of the 
letters that come to the Ladies^ Home 
Journal decorating department are in refer- 
ence to curtains, I am led to believe that the cur- 
tain problem is one of the most puzzling to 
women who are furnishing their homes. This 
is due partly to a change in architecture, which 
means that new and unfamiliar types of win- 
dows are used. Then, too, the manufacturers 
see to it that fashions in curtain fabrics change 
as often as possible, for there are always women 
who are unhappy unless everything they have 
from clothes to curtains is the dernier cri. 
Some one has aptly said that the difference be- 
tween having things in good taste and having 
them fashionable is that if they are in good 
taste one will not be ashamed of them next 
year. 

Good taste is governed by suitability, so that 
if the newest things in curtain materials hap- 

79 



80 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

pen to be right for the windows in question 
there is not the slightest reason why they should 
not be selected ; but so long as they are service- 
able, they should be used, and not be discarded 
simply because something newer is on the mar- 
ket. 

The question of suitability depends upon the 
height of the window, the view, the way it 
opens, and the way the windows in adjoining 
rooms are curtained. Some persons consider 
the outside appearance of the house when 
choosing their curtains, and that is right to a 
certain extent, so long as the charm of the in- 
terior is not sacrificed. 

A window is designed primarily to let in 
light and air, and is not a thing to be decked 
out like an over-dressed child, in layer upon 
layer of ruffles and lace. The important con- 
sideration is how to get just the desired amount 
of light and air from each window in the day- 
time, and how to screen the room adequately 
at night. 

Let us consider, first, the glass in the front 
door of a house. It usually contains the only 
window to the front hall, so it should be cur- 
tained in such a way as to let in as much light 
as possible. On the other hand, as those who 



THE HANGING OF CURTAINS 



81 



do their own work know only too well, it is very 
important to be able to see who is at the door 
without being seen from the outside. These 
considerations have led to the use of very thin 
materials such as scrim, voile, thin China silk. 







r 

r 

r 
r 
r 

L 



r 

r 

r 

r 



"1 



r_ 



Diff'erent types of doors require different curtain treatment 

or net, gathered tightly between rods placed at 
top and bottom of the glass. A flat panel of 
filet lace is sometimes stretched across the glass, 
or a panel charmingly wrought of coarse linen. 




L 




Effective curtaining for the old-fashioned type of high window 

with insertions of filet lace. This is the one 
place where a rather elaborate curtain is per- 
missible. If there is a vestibule door with 
glass in it, the curtain should match the one 
used in the front door. 



82 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



In houses built from twenty to forty years 
ago, the ceihngs, and consequently the win- 
dows, are apt to be very high. Such windows 
require a special treatment, because it is trying 
on the eyes to have light coming from above. 
Shades are almost a necessity, unless Dutch 
curtains are used, and if the windows are nar- 
row as well as high, a lower look may be ob- 
tained by the use of overcurtains and deep val- 
ances. The use of a valance is never a matter 
of fashion : it is always a question to be deter- 
mined by the person who is doing the decorat- 
ing. A valance always makes a window look 
shorter and broader, and a number of them 
used give to a high room a cozier, lower appear- 
ance. If that is the desired effect, then val- 
ances should be used to produce it. 

The "glass curtains," 



m 



p? 



Lhi 



i: 




those that hang close to the 

I glass, are usually hung 

from a rod, the fixtures of 

Curtaining which does not which are plaCCd iu the rUU 
keep out the light „ . . , , ,- 

01 the wmdow, above the 
shade, if a shade is used. The materials for 
these curtains are muslin, either ruffled or plain, 
scrim, voile, net, cheesecloth, theatrical scrim, 
tarlton, thin hnen, casement cloth, batiste, un- 



THE HANGING OF CURTAINS 



83 



bleached cotton and plain China silk. There 
are many ways of hanging these curtains. 
They usually reach only to the sill, but they 
may either hang straight down, drawn together 
across the glass, or they may be drawn apart. 
Sometimes they are caught back in the center 
with bands of the same material, while another 
way is to have a rod at top and bottom, with 
the material stretched between the two rods. 






Three types of over curtains 

with or without a narrow heading at each end, 
and caught back or not as preferred. 

When but one set of curtains is used at a win- 
dow, any of the ways just described may be 
used, or they may be hung as over-curtains are 
hung. 

Over curtains are, as a rule, used to help 
furnish a room by adding color and variety to 
the side walls, as well as to soften the light, and 
to act as shades when drawn together at night. 
The usual way to hang them is to have the fix- 
tures placed in the center of the corner of the 



84 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



upper outer casing. The rod should be large 
and strong enough to hold the curtains with- 
out sagging in the center, but for the ordinary 
window and with the sort of fabrics used now- 
adays a sohd brass rod about three quarters of 
an inch thick is usually all that is required. 
The fixtures should be as inconspicuous as pos- 
sible. 

The curtains may be run 
onto the rod by means of a 
narrow hem at the top, or 
they may be suspended 
from it by means of small 
brass rings placed about 
three inches apart. If it is 
desirable to draw these cur- 
tains together at any time, 
a valance, if one is used, 
should be run onto a sepa- 
rate rod, or tacked to a 
narrow board alSixed to the 
top of the casing. Other- 
wise the valance may be set 
in between the two side curtains on the same 
rod. 

Sunfast materials suitable to use for over- 
curtains are now to be found in a great variety 




Decorative loindows 

should have 'plain 

curtains 



One of the best 
features of this 
bathroom is the 
closet for clothes 
hamper and linen 
supplies 









Plain iro)i bedsteads 
made sightly by covers 
of chintz that match 
the ivindoiv hanging <; 




"t: 



•^ c: 










iv 

j^ 

^ 



THE HANGING OF CURTAINS 85 

of colors, weaves, and weights. The more ex- 
pensive, imported ones really do resist the 
action of the sun, and, as they are very wide, 
one-half the width is usually enough for each 
side curtain. For sunny windows it pays to 
buy the best, if colored material is to be used. 
I have tried inexpensive domestic chintzes and 
it is like throwing money away, for even before 
they are washed, they have faded so that the 
room looks shabby and colorless. On the 
other hand I have English chintz that has been 
in constant use for ten years, and after fre^ 
quent washings, the color is as bright as the 
day it was bought. 

Linen, plain or figured, velvet, velour, cre- 
tonne, Java and India cottons, silk, rep, 
monk's cloth, chambray, denim, and countless 
novelty fabrics, are used for over-curtains, their 
suitability depending upon the room in which 
they are to be used. 

DUTCH CURTAINS 

These are simply a separate pair of sash cur- 
tains at each sash of each window, made to draw 
together by having small brass rings at the top. 
Suitable materials for these charming little cur- 
tains are English casement cloth, unbleached 



86 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 



muslin or linen, scrim, cheesecloth or English 
net. Over-curtains of plain-colored material 
or of figured chintz may be used. This sort of 
curtains takes the place of shades and gives a 

very harmonious ef- 
fect if used in every 
window of the house. 
Casement windows 
that are so much used 
nowadays give much 
trouble on account of 
their very simphcity. 
It is hard to believe 
that shades may be dispensed with and that one 
set of curtains is all that is really required. 
They should be hung by small brass rings, so 
that they may easily be drawn together, and 




Regulate light in high case- 

ment windows by Dutch 

or double curtains 






Curtains of thick material hung on rings take the place of shades 
with casement windows 

thus take the place of shades. If the window 
opens outward, the fixtures for the curtain rods 
should be placed on the casing above the win- 
dow, but if the window opens into the room. 



THE HANGING OF CURTAINS 



87 



the fixtures should be attached to the sash, so 
that when the window is opened, the curtain 
comes with it. 

French doors with small panes of glass are 
being used more and more, not only as outside 
doors, in which case the curtains for them corre- 
spond to the curtains of the windows in the 
same room, but between rooms as well. In this 
case, it is customary to have curtains of thin 
material, stretched tightly between rods placed 
at top and bottom of the glass. Portieres are 
sometimes used at either side of the doors, but 
they are by no means essential. 



PORTIERES 



If there is an open space between rooms, it is 
really necessary to have portieres in order to in- 





The 'primary use of portieres is to insure privacy 

sure privacy at times. As that is the chief 
reason for using portieres, it stands to reason 
that the material used for the purpose should 
be of sufficient weight, and sufficiently closely 



88 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

woven, to act as a complete screen. The ma- 
terials that are best for these door curtains are : 
rep, velour, heavy linen, denim, monk's cloth, 
and the sunfast fabrics that go under various 
trade names. It is hard for the enlightened 
to believe that some people still use rope por- 
tieres, but I have been in towns where such 
things are shown at the "general store" as be- 
ing the "latest thing out." 



CHAPTER IV 

Floor Coverings 

IN selecting floor coverings there are several 
important considerations. The design and 
quality should be governed by the treatment the 
rug will necessarily have. 

HALL 

A hall rug or carpet will receive hard wear; 
therefore, the quality should be good. A small 
all-over symmetrical design in two tones of one 
color or in several harmonizing colors will show 
dust and wear less than a plain surface would 
do. 

Rag rug, machine made, 3 by 6 feet . . $1.75 

Hand-woven rag rug, 3 by 6 feet . . . 7.50 

Scotch wool rug, 3 by 6 feet 4.00 

Hand-woven wool rug, 3 by 6 feet . . . 6.00 

East India drugget, 3 by 6 feet .... 8.00 

Saxony, 3 by 6 feet . 9.00 

Brussels rug, 3 by 6 feet 9.00 

Oriental rug, 3 by 6 feet 35.00 

LIVING-ROOM 

In a living-room the floor covering will be 
worn all over equally. Since there is always a 

89 



90 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

variety of colors and forms in a living-room it 
is well to keep the floor covering as plain as pos- 
sible. A rug with a plain center and a darker 
border of the same color is excellent in this 
room, particularly if the walls or hangings are 
figured. If they are plain, the rug or carpet 
may have a small, indefinite figure. If several 
domestic rugs are used in the same room they 
should be exactly alike in design and color. If 
small Oriental rugs are used they will, of 
course, differ in design, but they should be as 
nearly as possible in the same tone. 

Good Living-room Rugs 

Crex or grass rug, 9 by 12 feet . . . $8.50 
Rag rugs, 9 by 12 feet . . . $10.00 to 45.00 
Scotch wool rug, 9 by 12 feet . $14.50 to 25.00 

Brussels, 9 by 12 feet 32.75 

Hand-woven wool rug, 9 by 12 feet . . 36.00 
East India drugget, 9 by 12 feet . . . 43.00 

Saxony, 9 by 12 feet 50.00 

Oriental, 9 'by 12 feet 200.00 up 

DINING-ROOM 

A dining-room rug gets very hard wear in 
spots. It should, therefore, be selected in as 
good quality as one can afford. It is not well 
to have a perfectly plain rug in a dining-room, 
as a plain surface shows crumbs and spots too 
readily. There is no objection to having a din- 
ing-room floor quite bare, if the floor is well fin- 



FLOOR COVERINGS 91 

ished. Inlaid linoleum also makes an excellent 
floor covering for a dining-room that receives 
very hard usage. 

The best coverings for this room are : 

Crex ingrain rug, 9 by 12 feet .... $8.50 
Rag rug, 9 by 12 feet .... $10.00 to 45.00 

Brussels, 9 by 12 feet 32.75 

East India drugget, 9 by 12 feet . . . 36.00 

Saxony, 9 by 12 feet 50.00 

Oriental, 9 by 12 feet 200.00 

BEDROOM 

On account of the lint which accumulates in 
bedrooms it is a good plan to keep the space 
under the beds bare, so that it may be dusted 
every day. Small rugs laid where most needed 
are more hygienic in sleeping-rooms than are 
large rugs and carpets. Plain Chinese mat- 
ting makes a clean floor covering when the 
boards are not in good condition. Although it 
is in good taste to use a carpet or one large rug 
in a bedroom, the preference lies among the 
following : 

Small rag rugs, 3 by 6 feet $1.75 

Oval braided rag rugs, 3 by 6 feet . . 2.50 

East India drugget, 3 by 6 feet . . . 8.00 

Saxony, 3 by 6 feet 8.00 

Oriental, 3 by 6 feet 35.00 

Oval rag rugs have become very popular 
lately, and when carefully designed and made 



92 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

of either woolen or cotton rags in fast colors, 
they are artistic, serviceable, washable, and 
suitable to use in bedrooms, bathrooms, and 
kitchens of any house. In simple houses, par- 
ticularly those furnished with Colonial furni- 
ture, these rugs are often used even in the hall, 
living-room and dining-room, the size being 
governed to suit the need. One of the chief 
things to recommend them is the fact that they 
may be made at home without the use of a loom ; 
a child may even be easily taught to do certain 
processes of the work, and to make tiny ones 
for her dolls' house. 

The rug in the lower photograph facing 
page 41, I made of deep cream and turquoise 
blue cotton rags, cut in one-inch strips the 
width of the material. Each strip I folded 
under a half inch on each side, then pressed 
with a hot iron. This left a strip one-half inch 
wide, with the rough side kept underneath 
when braiding. It is easier to braid if the 
strands are not too long, so I always join mine 
as I go along, working the colors in to carry 
out the design I have in mind. In this rug, I 
began with the blue, and braided enough to 
form the oval center, sewing the sides of the 
braid together with linen thread on the wrong 



FLOOR COVERINGS 93 

side, and holding the work rather loose, so as 
to avoid unevenness when the rug is laid out on 
the floor. As soon as the blue center was large 
enough, I left out one strand of blue, and sub- 
stituted one of cream, going round once, then 
another strand of blue was omitted, and a sec- 
ond of cream, was used. After going around 
the rug once more, the third strand of blue was 
left out, and the braid became solid cream color. 

After carrying this around the rug, the whole 
process was reversed, until solid blue was 
reached again, and so on back to cream, until 
the rug was the required size. The center and 
the outer stripe ought to be the same color. 

When my rug was done, I decorated it with 
roses and green leaves made of strands of cot- 
ton crepe in two shades of pink and two of 
gray green. 



CHAPTER V 

Tableware and Silver 

SO many things have to be taken into con- 
sideration in the selection of tableware, 
that in giving lists of what seem to me the 
essential things to buy at the outset I will at the 
same time tell my reasons for choosing as I do. 

To my mind, one of the charms of a meal is 
to have a variety in the dishes from which the 
different courses are served. For this reason, 
I do not advise getting a whole set of one pat- 
tern. My way in the long run will not be any 
more expensive, for there are certain things 
which must of necessity match exactly, and 
these I select from an open stock pattern that 
may always be found, when it is necessary to 
replace anything that is broken. 

To be specific, I will give a list of my own 
tableware that is adequate. The numbers of 
each, I will omit, as each person's requirements 
differ so much, but in starting out, there are 
many things, in dishes, silver and glass, which 

94 



TABLEWARE AND SILVER 95 

may as well be bought in half dozen as in dozen 
lots. 

Plain green Sedgi ware: Dinner plates, 
luncheon plates (used also for breakfast and 
salad), bread and butter plates, coffee cups 
and saucers, hot milk jug, to be used also for 
chocolate, a small platter to be used for ome- 
lettes, eggs, or other breakfast dishes. These 
are the only open stock dishes I have. 

Soup plates of decorated German ware, to be 
used also for cereals. 

Coalport teapot, and cups and saucers in In- 
dian Tree design. 

Desert plates of Doulton semi-porcelain, to 
be used alone or under glass plates. Design of 
birds and flowers. 

Deep green salad bowl of plain Italian pot- 
tery. 

Vinegar and oil cruets of French decorated 
china. 

After-dinner coffee cups of Minton ware, in 
white and green. 

Bouillon cups of Limoges in white and green. 

Three casseroles of plain green Chinese pot- 
tery with covers. 

At first glance I may seem to have a hetero- 
geneous assortment of makes and designs in 



96 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

my dishes, but when in use, no two designs ever 
appear on the table at the same time, while any 
one of the figured dishes looks well with the 
plain green ware. For example, when I serve 
salad, I like to make it on the table, using my 



A salad bowl of plain green pottery, Sedgi plates of the same 

shade of green and figured cruets give variety 

to the meal 

Italian bowl of plain green pottery. The 
Sedgi plates are the same shade of green, and 
the figured oil and vinegar cruets simply give a 
variety which is pleasing after the main course 
that was served from all green and silver dishes. 

GLASSWARE 

The excellent reproductions in pressed glass 
of Colonial designs, make it possible to use 
glass that is rather heavy and very inexpensive, 
as a substitute for china. The modern cut 
glass that one usually sees, has little to recom- 



, TABLEWARE AND SILVER 97 

mend it, for the designs are poor as a rule, so 
this pressed glass is really to be preferred to cut 
glass, unless one is so fortunate as to have some 
of the genuine old English glass which was cut 
in simple designs. This would be too precious 
to use commonly, so that even by these fortu- 
nate ones, the pressed glass would be desirable 
for everyday use. 

GLASS, COLONIAL PRESSED 

% dozen tumblers 

1/2 dozen sherbet glasses 

1/2 dozen dessert plates 

1/2 dozen finger bowls 

Sugar bowl and cream pitcher 

Disn for lemons 

Dish for nuts 

Pitcher 

Candlesticks 

Vinegar and oil cruets 

Berry dish 

% dozen iced tea glasses 

l^ dozen individual salt cellars 

1 large plate 

1 large cream pitcher 

3 plates for cheese, butter, etc 

Pepper shakers for use in making salad .... 
1/3 dozen coasters to be used under iced tea glasses 

SIL\^RWARE 

There is no objection to the use of plated 
silver, so long as the design is good and the 
plate is heavy enough to give good service. In 
fact, even though it is thought best to get solid 
flat silver, there are other articles of daily use 



98 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

that it seems to me wise, in the saving from 
breakage alone, to select in plated silver at the 
outset, having the design conform to that of the 
flat silver. 

1 dozen teaspoons 

1/^ dozen dessertspoons (used for soup also) . 

4 tablespoons 

1 dozen dessert forks (used also for breakfast, 

lunch, salad, pie, fruit, etc.) 

1/2 dozen dessert knives 

1/3 dozen table knives with steel blades and ivoroid 

handles 

Carving set to match steel knives 

14 dozen table forks 

3 fancy spoons for jellies, bonbons, etc 

'2 fancy forks for olives, lemon, etc 

1/2 dozen after-dinner coffee spoons 

1/2 dozen bouillon spoons . 

1/2 dozen butter spreaders 

1 gravy ladle 

Saltspoon 

Sugar tongs . . - 

PLATED VTARE 

Covered vegetable dish (cover may be used as a 

dish by removing handle) 

Platter <. . . 

Pitcher t. . . . 

Coffee pot 

Toast rack ....,•.. . .... 

Small tray 

Sandwich plate . 

Silver bowl 

Egg steamer ............. 

Bread or fruit tray . . . : 

Tea strainer 

Candlesticks . 

In addition to the lists given, there are cer- 
tain little things that may be used on the table 



TABLEWARE AND SILVER 99 

for the sake of variety and diversion. For ex- 
ample, bone spoons for eggs will not tarnish as 
silver ones will. Then instead of pepper 
shakers, grinders may be used in order that the 
real flavor of black pepper may be obtained by 
grinding the pepper corns directly onto the 
food that is to be seasoned. 

For serving French rolls, muffins, and bis- 
cuit, I like to use an oval wicker basket with a 
napkin in it. For fruit in the center of the 
table I sometimes use a charming oval basket of 
wood, painted white and sparingly decorated 
with green. 

Teakwood stands are attractive to use in- 
stead of tiles for holding a hot tea or coffee pot, 
as well as to hold a bowl of flowers in the center 
of the table. 

An egg coddler of Britannia ware or plate is 
a useful as well as an ornamental device, for 
after pouring boiling water over the eggs, they 
are placed in the coddler onto the table where 
after about five minutes, during which time one 
may attend to toast, and other things with a 
free mind, they are done to a turn, and may 
then be opened by the man of the house by the 
use of an egg opener, which he is sure to ap- 
preciate. 



100 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

One of the chief delights in visiting my 
friends, and also in traveling in foreign coun- 
tries is to see the ways others have devised to 
make their tables interesting and individual, 
without departing from the only hide-bound 
requisites: those of order and absolute cleanli- 
ness. A bare table of plain wood, set with 
crude pottery dishes and coarse unbleached 
linen will be picturesque and inviting if things 
are spotlessly clean and symmetrically ar- 
ranged. 

TABLE LINEN 

This brings me to the consideration of linen 
for use on the table. Here I take exception 
to the use of large tablecloths of pure white 
damask, for general use. It is well to have at 
least two of them in reserve, for there are times 
when nothing else does so well, but for every- 
day use I like better small cloths of creamy un- 
bleached linen, heavy but rather coarse in tex- 
ture. Arranging a table is to me like paint- 
ing a picture, and I prefer a cream to a staring 
white background for most of my table ar- 
rangements. It is the tendency nowadays for 
table decorations to be more individual and less 
stereotyped and conventional than formerly. 



TABLEWARE AND SILVER 101 



LINEN 

Many young women wish to know the neces- 
sary amount of table and bed linen to provide 
when preparing for their first housekeeping. 
The list given is meant for persons with aver- 
age incomes. The quality should be the best 
that one can possibly afford. The breakfast 
runners and napkins are to be made by hand of 
unbleached linen, such as one buys for dish 
towels. With insets of imitation filet lace 
these are very attractive, durable and easy to 
launder. 

No list has been given for kitchen linens, but 
it is well to have a supply of linen tea towels 
and roller towels. Floor cloths, pot holders 
and cheesecloth dusters should also be provided 
in abundance. 

Table Linen 

2 dozen 22-inch napkins, at $3.00 a dozen 

2 dozen 12-inch luncheon napkins, at $4.50 a dozen 

(Luncheon napkins at $1.00 a dozen if made by hand of 
coarse linen) 
2 two-yard-square tablecloths, at $1.25 a yard 
Two-yard square asbestos or cotton flannel pad for table 
1/^ dozen square teacloths 
% dozen table runners for breakfast 
1 dozen white fringed napkins 
4 tray covers 

1 dozen finger-bowl doilies 
1 dozen plate doilies 



102 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 
Bed Linen 

4 sheets (extra long) for each bed 

4 pillow cases for each pillow 

1 mattress protector for each bed, with one extra one in the 

house 
9 spreads for each bed. 

1 down or lamb's-wool comforter for each bed 
1 pair of blankets for each bed, with 2 extra pairs in the 

house 
14 dozen plain huckaback towels for each person 
3 bath towels for each person 
1/2 dozen washcloths for each person 
1 bath mat in the bathroom, 2 in reserve 



CHAPTER VI 

Pictures and Other Ornaments 

THERE is no subject pertaining to the 
house upon which it is so difficult to give 
suggestions as the subject of pictures, and yet 
there is nothing that can so easily detract from 
the beauty of a room as pictures that are un- 
wisely selected or badly hung. 

the hanging of pictures 

Large pictures should be hung by two paral- 
lel wires from the picture molding. The cen- 
ter of the picture should be on the level of the 
average eye. The wires should be as near the 
color of the wall as possible. 

Small pictures should be hung somewhat 
lower than larger ones. They may be hung 
in groups if the wall space is large, or singly if 
the space is small. A small picture may be 
suspended by a brass ring screwed into the cen- 
ter of the top of frame or by an invisible wire. 

103 



104 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

In either case it hangs from a tack driven into 
the wall. 

rThere are a number of Eastern picture deal- 
ers who, for a small sum, will send illustrated 
catalogues of their pictures from which selec- 
tions may be made. Some dealers will even 
send pictures on approval to those who can 
furnish some satisfactory business reference. 
There is, therefore, no excuse for using any but 
good pictures nowadays. Color reproductions 
are now within the reach of the most modest 
purse and in selecting reproductions of paint- 
ings it is better to have them in color than in 
black and white. 

If one especially prefers black-and-white pic- 
tures it is better to get photographs of good 
specimens of architecture, sculpture or scenery, 
etchings, reproductions of woodcuts or of black- 
and-white drawings. 

While it would be useless to attempt to give 
a list of suitable pictures to use in the different 
rooms of a house, a few general suggestions 
may prove helpful. 

In a hall with plain walls, have pictures such 
as good decorative portraits, colored architec- 
tural drawings or Japanese prints. If the 



PICTURES AND OTHER ORNAMENTS 105 

hall has a figured paper it is best to have a 
mirror and possibly a good plaster cast in ivory 
finish as the only wall decoration. 

In the hving-room the greatest restraint 
must be exercised or the restfulness, so impor- 
tant to that room, will be sacrificed. If the 
wall spaces really need a decorative treatment 
select pictures of which no member of the 
family will be likely to tire. Reproductions in 
color of famous portraits of men, women or 
children are apt to prove satisfactory. Repro- 
ductions of landscapes, allegorical pictures, or 
mural decorations are also good. The frames 
may be in dull gold or plain wood to correspond 
with the woodwork or furniture of the room. 

If one has family portraits which have real 
artistic merit, aside from association, the din- 
ing-room is an excellent place for them. 
While it is correct to hang pictures in a dining- 
room it is well to make this room distinctive by 
using on the walls decorative china, brass, cop- 
per or pewter and by having the windows filled 
with growing bulbs or flowering plants. 

The bedroom is the right place for personal 
things such as photographs, diplomas, senti- 
mental pictures, religious pictures and family 



106 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

portraits, which have associations but no deco- 
rative value. 

ORNAMENTS 

The rage for bric-a-brac is a thing of the 
past. Select the necessary small furnishings 
of a home with an eye to beauty as well as util- 
ity and few other ornaments will be needed. 

HALL 

For umbrellas select a plain pottery jar to 
harmonize with the color scheme. It will cost 
no more than an ordinary wooden umbrella 
rack. 

The frame for the hall mirror may be orna- 
mental. Colonial designs are good as are also 
hand-carved frames done in dull gold. Carved 
oak frames are also good when they harmonize 
with the other furnishings. 

On the hall table have a brass card tray if the 
hall hardware is in brass; a silver one if the 
hardware is nickel or black iron. On the 
table have also a pencil and a leather-covered 
pad. 

The hall lantern or wall sconces may also 
be selected in harmony with other furnishings 
and have distinct decorative value. 



PICTURES AND OTHER ORNAMENTS 107 
LIVING-ROOM 

In the living-room the following articles are 
indispensable and each one should be carefully- 
selected : 

A reading lamp high enough to throw the 
light properly when one is reading. The best 
reading lamp is a double student lamp in brass, 
with plain sage green glass shades and duplex 
burners. A good lamp can be made by using 
any piece of pottery of the right shape and size 
fitted with an oil font or electric burner and 
with a shade of plain silk or of Japanese rice 
paper. 

Book ends for the table are now to be found 
made of wood, brass, plaster, tapestry and 
bronze. 

Library shears and paper-cutter in a double 
sheath of leather or brass. 

Clock in a simple, plain design of wood, 
crystal, French gilt or leather. 

Matchbox. 

Desk appointments. 

Waste-basket. 

Dull pottery vases for flowers. 

Terra-cotta window-boxes for plants. 

Wall sconces or electric sidelight^. 



108 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Woodbox or basket. 

Andirons. 

Fire irons. 

Cushions. 

Ash receiver. 

Sewing-box or basket. 

Table-cover in Hnen, brocade, rep, velours or 
sunfast fabric in plain color, the edges bound 
with old gold gimp. 

The piano may be left bare, but if a cover is 
used for an upright piano it should fit the top 
of the piano exactly, and should be made of 
the same material as the table-cover. The 
piano is to be treated as a musical instrument 
rather than as a piece of furniture. No orna- 
ments are required on a piano, but if any are 
used they should be low and heavy so that they 
will not shake when the instrument is played. 
A handsome portfolio for music may lie on the 
piano with a low jar of flowers at either end 
of the top of the piano in case it is an upright. 

MANTEL ORNAMENTS 

There is no fixed way for arranging orna- 
ments on a mantelpiece, but it is well to have 
the arrangement as dignified and symmetrical 
as possible. A candlestick at either end with 



PICTURES AND OTHER ORNAMENTS 109 

a simple clock or vase in the center is a good ar- 
rangement, although there is no objection to 
using a pair of 



^ I- 



(i) 



<S) 


® 



a 
vases or small 
Tanagra figures 
to balance the 
spaces left be- 
tween the other 
ornaments. The 
mantel should 
never be cluttered 
with unf ramed 
photographs, cal- 
endars or other 
undecorative ar- 
ticles. When in 
doubt use flowers 
in plain bowls or 
vases, where you feel the need of an ornament. 
They are always in good taste and when not 
procurable there are substitutes to be found 
in the woods at all times of the year. 




Mantel treatment in sleeping room 
of old Colonial house 



DINING-ROOM 



Decorative china for walls or plate-rail. 
If there is a china closet, fill it with china 
which really adds to the beauty of the room. 



110 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Keep other china and glass in the pantry ex- 
cept at mealtime. 

Plants or bulbs growing in the windows. 

Plant, fruit or flowers for the center of the 
dining-table. 

Silver for the sideboard. 

Candlesticks in glass or silver to be used on 
the table at night and kept on the serving-table 
or buffet during the day. 

KITCHEN 

Decorative china, shining copper pots or 
pans, enameled kitchen utensils, something 
green growing in the windows, curtains of fig- 
ured chintz, and linoleum in attractive design 
are the ornaments of a well-planned kitchen. 

BEDROOMS 

Very few ornaments are necessary in bed- 
rooms. Besides the regular toilet articles, 
there should always be a matchbox con- 
veniently placed, a waste-basket, a sewing- 
basket, a desk set, a lamp and candlesticks. 
There should also be a water pitcher and drink- 
ing-glass on a tray on the bedside table. 



CHAPTER VII 

System in the Household 

NO system of housekeeping is good that 
does not take into consideration the hab- 
its of the family in question, therefore the best 
way to do is for each housekeeper to make out 
a system of her own to fit conditions which it 
is impossible to change. After doing all she 
can to perfect her own system, she will do well 
to consult a book written by a housekeeping 
expert, in order to compare notes and get 
added suggestions. 

Each member of the household should be 
given some part of the daily routine for which 
he is held responsible, in order that the woman 
who does her own work may do it well and yet 
have time left for other things. Not only 
should each one assume some definite part of 
the work, but he should be considerate in not 
making work for another to do. This is where 
good breeding and character count for much. 

Some one has said that the test of a Christian 

111 



112 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

is the way he leaves the washstand after using 
it. The bathroom should be put in good order 
once a day, and each person after using it 
should leave it in as neat a condition as when 
he found it ; tub and basin clean, towels folded 
or put into a hamper if soiled. 

When children have to go very early to 
school, it is not possible for them to take en- 
tire charge of their rooms, but they may be 
early taught to hang up their night clothes, to 
air their bed clothes, open the windows and 
leave their rooms in good order. 

Conveniences should be provided at the out- 
set to make it possible for each one to do his 
part with the least possible confusion. There 
should be a shelf somewhere with a roll of 
wrapping paper on it and a ball of stout twine 
near at hand. In a drawer, it is well to keep 
supplies such as paraffin paper, plain white 
paper napkins, paper plates and cups in readi- 
ness for an impromptu picnic lunch. 

A tool chest may easily be improvised from 
a shallow box and hung against the wall in a 
convenient place. It should contain a ham- 
mer, hatchet, screw-driver, screws, tacks, as- 
sorted nails, screw-hooks, picture-wire, picture 
hooks, et cetera. 



SYSTEM IN THE HOUSEHOLD 113 

A large bottle of ink should be kept on hand 
from which smaller bottles may be filled when 
needed. Library paste is easily made and a 
quantity of that, too, should be kept on the sup- 
ply shelf. 

It will be found very convenient to have a 
place on the second floor to keep a broom, dust- 
pan, brush, dusters and cleaning fluids, to save 
having to carry them up and downstairs. 

Near the telephone there should always be 
a pad and pencil for taking messages. If the 
house is in the country where trains and street 
cars have to be used, it is well to have a sched- 
ule posted somewhere, so that even a guest may 
consult it conveniently. 

As pins are constantly being needed, it is 
convenient to have a pincushion in every room. 

In every living-room there should be some- 
thing provided for newspapers when not being 
read. 

If there are smokers in the family, there 
should always be a supply of safety matches 
and ash trays kept in a convenient place. 

Above all, should there be a place some- 
where in each house where one may always 
find writing materials, a clean blotter and a 
clear space on which to write. A well-ap- 



114 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

pointed desk is the ideal thing, but failing that, 
a table will do very well so long as the chair 
on which the writer sits is a proper height. A 
pen tray containing both pointed and stub 
pens, a writing pad with envelopes to match, 
clean blotters, a calendar and a book of stamps, 
are the only requirements. It should be some 
one's regular duty to see that such a writing 
table is always in order, the same person mak- 
ing herself responsible for keeping magazines 
in order on the table and for disposing of them 
along with newspapers after they have been 
used. These may seem like trivial things, but 
in the house with no servant, a little co-opera- 
tion on the part of the various members of 
the family is necessary in order that all details 
may be so looked after that a pleasant, orderly, 
smoothly running home may be the result. 

Whether a woman does all of her work or 
employs a servant to do it, it is important to 
go through the work often enough to stand- 
ardize each process, so as to know how long 
it takes, before making out a definite schedule 
to be followed each day. Such a schedule 
should then be typewritten and framed under 
glass to be hung in a convenient place on the 
kitchen wall for reference. 



SYSTEM IN THE HOUSEHOLD 115 



(sample) schedule 



WORK FOR EVERY DAY 

6 A. M. 
Get up 
Dress 

Air bedroom 

Put living-room and dining- 
room in order 
Set table 
Prepare breakfast 

7.30 A. M. 

Serve breakfast 

Clear table 

Wash and scald dishes 

Make out menus for the day 

Do ordering 

Make beds 

Clean bathroom 

Dust rooms 

Empty waste baskets 

Water plants 

Put away dishes 

Arrange kitchen 

9.30 A. M. 

Do special work for the day 

12.30 p. M, 

Set table for lunch 

1 p. M. 

Serve lunch 

Clear table 

Brush under table if necessary 

Prepare vegetables and dessert 

for dinner 
Wash dishes 
Scald dishes 

Empty kitchen garbage pail 
Scald garbage pail 
Put away dishes 
Sweep kitchen 
Rest 
Dress for the afternoon 

6 P. M. 

Set table 
Prepare dinner 

6.30 P. M. 

Serve dinner 

Clear table 

Wash, scald and put away 

dishes 
Rest 



WORK FOR SPECIAL DAYS 
MONDAY 

Wash clothes 

Scrub kitchen, laundry, bath- 
room and cellar stairs 
Dampen and fold clothes 



TUESDAY 
Iron clothes 



WEDNESDAY 
Mend and put away clothes 
Sew 



THURSDAY 

Clean silver, brasses, mirrors 
and windows 



FRIDAY 

General cleaning 
Clean one room each week 
thoroughly 



SATURDAY 
Baking 
Preparations for Sunday 



116 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

At one side of this schedule should hang a 
pad with cord and pencil attached upon which 
may be written the needed supplies, and at the 
other side should be hung the menus for the 
day. A calendar and a clock on this same 
wall will concentrate all information as to what 
is to be done and when. 

A shelf for cook books and card catalogue, 
a hook for supply slips and a scale with which 
to verify weights are conveniences that all 
kitchens should have. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Ugly Things Improved or the Art of 
Making Use of What Is at Hand 

BY using imagination and ingenuity, many 
things about the house may be so trans- 
formed as to be not only more useful but really 
good-looking as well. 

An unsightly chair of which the padding is 
good but the surface worn and faded may be 
concealed by a slip cover of washable material 
which need not be expensive. These slip 
covers are not difficult to make : simply lay the 
material on the different surfaces of the chair 
with the pattern wrong side out, but so placed 
that the design best suits the spaces, allowing 
plenty of the material around the seat and arms 
to tuck in so that the cover may be slipped off 
easily. Baste or pin the edges together, sew 
on the machine, then cut close to the seam. 
Now turn on the right side and make a French 
seam around all of the edges. This strength- 

117 



118 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

ens them and acts as a finish as well. The 
whole cover should be made rather loose to al- 
low for shrinking. 

The same method of making slip covers may 
be applied in making them for the ends of iron 
beds that have become scuffed from hard usage. 
Chintz or any plain washable material that 
harmonizes with the room may be used, so long 
as it has sufficient body to conceal the frame of 
the bed. The spread should be of the same 
material as the slip covers, and there should be 
a valance of the same around the exposed sides 
of the bed. 

In a bedroom which lacked a closet, a very 
roomy one was improvised by having a board 
placed across an otherwise useless space. It 
rested on wooden cleats placed six feet above 
the floor. Between the cleats a pole was placed 
from which innumerable waists, skirts, and 
coats were hung. Below the waists, there was 
room for several small packing boxes. To 
hide all this, a curtain of chintz was suspended 
by brass rings from a brass rod placed under 
the front edge of the board. To hide this rod 
as well as the rings of the curtain, a narrow 
ruffle of the chintz was tacked to the edge of 
the board. On top of the shelf were two 




A day bed that takes up little space and conceals another 
single bed by its valance 




wlk 



A complete kitchen that measures 30x40 inches. A white 
board covers the stove at the left 




Two views of a roo)ny closet that utilises otherwise useless 

space. The dress and hat boxes on the shelf are covered 

witJi the same cJiintz as the curtains are made of 



ADAPTING WHAT YOU HAVE 119 

dress boxes and two hat boxes, the fronts of 
which were covered with the chintz. 

A similar space to that described above, but 
in the adjoining room, was utihzed in this way: 
being a six-foot space it held comfortably the 
springs and mattress of a single bed. These 
were held by wooden braces, placed high 
enough to allow a low cot on castors to be run 
underneath. In this way two beds were made 
to occupy the space of one during the day- 
time when this room was used as a sitting- 
room. To hide the lower bed, there was a val- 
ance of material to match the day cover of the 
upper bed. The valance was run onto a brass 
curtain rod which fitted into fixtures at either 
end. 

Old white inside shutters that were about 
to be removed suggested to me a way of using 
a very small corner in our apartment. I 
asked permission of the landlord to use two 
of the long and six of the short shutters. From 
these I made designs which a carpenter readily 
carried out for me at a very small cost. For 
the comer space I had seven triangles of wood 
cut to form the top and six shelves of a little 
cupboard. The two long shutters made pan- 
eled doors for it and at the top I had a simple 



120 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

Colonial ornament of wood as a finish. This 
afforded space enough for glass, china, and 
silver, which I used occasionally when enter- 
taining in this room. 

Two of the short blinds I used to enclose 
the lower shelves of our open bookcase. On 
these enclosed shelves we kept magazines, 
kodak books, and pamphlets. 

The other four short shutters I used to en- 
close shelves under a deep-set window in our 
tiny dining-room. Here they protected glass 
and china that were in everyday use from dust. 

Removing the upper shelf from a rather 
high, ugly mission magazine stand, and giving 
it several coats of ivory colored paint, made it 
into an attractive bedside table for the guest 
room. There was space on top for the light 
and a glass of water, the next shelf had room 
for books, while below there were still other 
shelves behind a little door. 

An ugly oak chiffonier became a charming 
piece of furniture after it was painted ivory 
white and decorated with baskets of gaily col- 
ored flowers. The flimsy handles were re- 
moved and simple glass ones used instead. 
The mirror, too, was painted, and with the ugly 
ornaments removed, was hung on the wall above 



ADAPTING WHAT YOU HAVE 121 

a dressing table made by placing a board of 
the right length on top of the sewing machine. 
A valance was tacked around the board, which 
concealed the sewing machine completely when 
not in use. 

And so one could go on indefinitely, but I 
hope I have given enough examples to illus- 







%> fjnS^S * 



S^^X 






Showing what can be done with an ugly oak chifonier 

trate the point which I am so anxious to make 
in this book: that brains may be made to take 
the place of money, and that the result of using 
them in connection with what one already has 
gives as a rule a home with individuality and 
charm which those that are all cut after the 
same pattern lack utterly. 



CHAPTER IX 

Plants, Flowers and Fruits in House 
Decoration 

THE return in pleasure for a very little 
money spent for plants, bulbs, flowers, 
or fruit for house decoration is out of all pro- 
portion to the investment. The important 
thing is to be on the lookout for something that 
will give the touch to a room that corresponds 
to the high light in a picture. 

English ivy is a satisfactory thing to use as 
it is inexpensive, requires little care and no sun. 
It lends itself delightfully to all sorts of ar- 
rangements, but is especially good when 
trained over a trellis. Bulbs also give excellent 
results, and for those who enjoy flowers but 
do not care to spend much time over them, 
nothing is so desirable as paper white narcissus. 
The bulbs cost only thirty cents a dozen and 
even three placed in a bowl with enough peb- 
bles to hold them straight and firm will give a 

charming result. The only care they need 13 

122 



GROWING THINGS AS DECORATIONS 123 

to have water about half the depth of the bulb. 

Hyacinths, jonquils, and pale pink Murillo 
tulips are lovely, but they are usually grown 
in pots of earth and require a cold dark room 
in which to form their roots before being 
brought to the light. 

Of potted plants, I have always been very 
fond of old-fashioned fuchsias, which are deco- 
rative and satisfactory. Geraniums, too, are 
good for simple houses. I usually use bright 
red ones in the kitchen and salmon pink ones 
in bedrooms where the color is right. Chinese 
primroses are also good for certain rooms; as 
for cyclamen, that is about the best of all, for it 
blooms incessantly from fall till spring. 

In the woods it is possible at all times of 
the year to find things that will last a long 
time as house decorations, so that those who 
have no means of visiting greenhouses are not 
on that account barred from really beautiful 
things for decorative purposes. In the fall 
there are the autumn leaves, and colored ber- 
ries, as well as various kinds of evergreen, in- 
cluding juniper with its blue berries. Bay- 
berry and laurel are lovely, as are pussy wil- 
lows, and wild fruit blossoms in the spring. 

When taking a walk in the country, I was 



124 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

one day excited on seeing a low tree with very 
black scraggly branches and black berries. I 
had been on the lookout for something decora- 
tive for the mantelpiece of my room, the hang- 
ings of which were of a gaily flowered chintz, 
but the rest of the room all black and white. 
Cutting some of the black branches, I hurried 
home with them, eager to get them into a tall 
white vase and on the mantel, where they were 
indeed just right between two silhouettes, 
themselves silhouetted against the plain white 
of the paneling. 

Some artists make a point of having in their 
gardens certain flowers which when dried will 
keep indefinitely, and take the place of fresh 
flowers during the winter months. Among 
these are rodanthe, helichrysum, and the irides- 
cent pods of "honesty" which are very Japanese 
in effect, and exactly right for certain rooms. 

For a table decoration, fruit has always ap- 
pealed to me strongly, for there is nothing 
more fascinating than to arrange a basket with 
differently colored fruits, just as if one were 
weaving a tapestry or a design in cross-stitch. 
The shape as well as the colors must be right. 
As a thanksgiving decoration, nothing is so 
symbolic as such a basket of fruit on the table, 




Ivy trained on a 

trellis gives color 

and design to a 

plain wall 



The panel under 
the ivindow at the 
right, zuhcn raised 
level zvith the sill, 
forms the dining- 
table 














I 


■p 


■ 


'9 




^1 




<i ^i^il^n^^l^^H ^^1 


1 


jdM^>^^.2^HriHB^^^^S 


d 


hI 



-A; 









GROWING THINGS AS DECORATIONS 125 

with garlands of it after the manner of Delia 
Robbia used appropriately on the wall or over 
a mantel. 

HOW TO TRIM THE CHRISTMAS TREE MOST 
EFFECTIVELY 

After trimming Christmas trees for many 
years, I have finally developed a system of pro- 
cedure which simplifies the process and gives a 
really exquisite result. The same method may 
be applied to any sized tree, from the full 
grown ones to the tiny ones used as table dec- 
orations. 

I keep the colors all white, green, and silver, 
and have nothing on the tree that is to be re- 
moved until the tree is entirely dismantled. 
The first thing is to select a good, full, sym- 
metrical tree with a standard of wood, or of 
iron, that will keep it firm and straight. If 
electricity is available, electric bulbs of white 
frosted glass are the first ornaments to be dis- 
tributed through the branches. Next comes 
the artificial asbestos snow; the sticky kind 
that may be placed in around the stem of the 
tree, and stuck to the needles to give the illu- 
sion of a recent snowfall. To complete the 
illusion, hang clear glass icicles from the tips 



126 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

of some of the branches. Then the silver orna- 
ments are hung, the strings of small balls and 
tinsel being hung perpendicularly. From the 
apex of the tree is now suspended a shimmer- 
ing veil of *'Lametta," which is made of thin 
strands of silver thread. The latest discovery 
I have made and the thing which distinguishes 
my trees from any I have ever seen, is called 
*'Engellocken" or Angels' Hair. It is made 
of spun glass, and when hung from the tip of 
the tree, and spread out as thinly as possible 
over the entire tree, it gives to it a mysterious, 
fairy-like appearance that looks like frosted 
cobwebs. If candles are to be used, they 
should be put on last, and for small trees I use 
the tiny white wax ones, held by small white 
rosebuds such as are sold for birthday cakes. 
To finish the top of the tree, a white Santa 
Claus, holding a white candle, may be placed 
at the apex, to cover the ends of the Lametta 
and Engellocken. 

A sheet should be spread around the base 
of the tree to cover the standard, and on it 
should be laid all of the presents that can be 
done up in white paper. Over everything 
there should be a generous sprinkling of mica 
snowflakes. 



GROWING THINGS AS DECORATIONS 127 



WINDOW-LIGHTING ON CHRISTMAS EVE 

Having described the way to trim the Christ- 
mas tree, I cannot end this book without de- 
scribing also the ceremony which I first saw 
while living on Beacon Hill in Boston, the 
place where this impressive old-world custom 
was first introduced. Like the municipal 



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T^e lights in the window on Christmas Eve 

Christmas tree, the ceremony has been adopted 
by various communities, but it is so beautiful, 
and so simple, that it ought to become a general 
custom. The accompanying cuts show the 
usual way to arrange the candles, so that any 
one who has even a rudimentary knowledge of 
carpentry can make the wooden strips that 
support them. There is little danger if cur- 



128 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

tains are either taken down, or drawn well back 
and carefully watched. 

Conditions were perfect the first time I saw 
the window-lighting, for it began to snow hard 
the morning before Christmas, the great wet 
flakes clinging to the branches of the trees. 
Before night it turned much colder, a full moon 
and brilliant stars showing in a deep blue sky, 
making a wonderful setting for what we were 
about to see. 

Not realizing that it was so late, I was 
startled by the sound of children's voices out- 
side. Standing in the snow beneath the lighted 
windows of the quaint old brick house opposite, 
were three little girls singing "The First Noel." 
As far as we could see up the hill, every win- 
dow of every house was lighted with candles. 
We simply had to see more, and as we walked 
we found the hill deserted and absolutely still, 
but a picture to remember always the lights 
from thousands of candles reflected by the 
snowy street. 

In one window was a Delia Robbia cast of 
the madonna and child in colored porcelain, a 
tall candle burning at either side of it. At the 
top of the hill we stopped to admire an old 
Bullfinch house, every window of which held a 



GROWING THINGS AS DECORATIONS 129 

three-branched candle stick with tall wax 
tapers. Off in the distance we could hear a 
group of men and girls singing that lovely old 
carol, **Come Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let 
Nothing Ye Dismay." On they came trudg- 
ing past us through the snow, leaving us 
thrilled by their simple music. 

We then passed through Walnut Street and 
down into Chestnut, where the snow-laden 
branches of the trees formed an archway across 
that picturesque thoroughfare, on either side 
of which the windows stripped of their dra- 
peries gave fascinating glimpses of Colonial 
interiors. Each house had an individual ar- 
rangement of candles, but no matter how sim- 
ple or how elaborate the grouping, the effect 
was always charming. Outside, the doors 
with their fan-lights were outlined with ropes 
of laurel, bunches of holly or wreaths of it 
hanging from the brass knockers. 

As we turned back into Mount Vernon 
Street, the air was vibrating with carols rung 
out by the bells in the Church of the Advent. 
The streets were filling with people, come to 
listen to the carollers who made a quaint pic- 
ture reading their words by the light of pierced 
brass lanterns. 



130 THE EFFECTIVE SMALL HOME 

In Louisberg Square they stood beneath the 
windows of Saint Margaret's Hospital, sing- 
ing in Latin, the "Adeste Fideles," the Sisters 
in their black robes looking down from behind 
rows of hghted candles. 

I couldn't help thinking how sweet it would 
be if every one, after the rush of shopping, the 
sending off of packages, the frenzied last- 
minute gift making, could get back to the real 
meaning of Christmas by placing lighted 
candles in their windows, as a symbol of the life 
of the One whose birthday none ever forgets: 
if everywhere on that one night of all the year 
people could meet in the quiet, friendly way 
they met that night on the Hill, all alike af- 
fected by the universal language of music and 
beauty. 



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APPENDIX 



APPENDIX I 

To Clean Porcelain 

Rub the inside of the bath tub, sink or basin with 
a cloth dampened with kerosene. For bad stains, 
use chloride of lime, dissolved in water. 

To Lacquer Brass 

Candlesticks, sconces, ornaments or hardware 
made of brass may be kept permanently bright by 
first having them clean, bright and dry, then, with a 
soft brush apply a thin coat of white shellac, cover- 
ing every bit of the surface. The work must be done 
quickly as shellac dries almost immediately. 

To Clean Lacquered Brass 

Dust the article to be cleaned; rub with sweet oil. 
Rub off the oil with a soft cloth and polish with a dry 
duster. A brass bed should be cleaned in this way. 

To Relacquer a Brass Bedstead 

When some of the lacquer has rubbed off of a 
brass bedstead, the rest may be removed with wood 
alcohol or any commercial paint and varnish re- 
mover. If the metal is solid brass it will require the 
same treatment as that given above, but if the metal 

proves to be iron, instead of white shellac a "Brass 

133 



134 APPENDIX 

Lacquer" will have to be used in order to give the 
original finish. In any case the work will be easier 
if the metal is heated slightly before the lacquer is 
applied. 

To Remove Wax from Candlesticks 

Plunge them into hot water and allow them to re- 
main until the wax is soft. 

How to Lay the Dust When Sweeping Carpets or 
Rugs or Beating Furniture 

Lacking a vacuum cleaner, it is possible to sweep 
without raising much dust if the broom is dipped in 
hot water into which a little turpentine or ammonia 
has been poured. Dry salt, damp tea leaves or 
pieces of paper wrung out of ammonia water may 
also be used for the same purpose. When obliged 
to beat upholstered furniture without removing it to 
the out of doors, cover it over with a dampened sheet, 
then beat it and the dust will adhere to the sheet. 

To Clean Smoky Ceilings 

Mix starch and water to a paste. Go over the 
entire ceiling with this even though only a small 
portion of it seems to be black. Leave it until it 
is perfectly dry, then brush it off. The paste must 
be applied with a pad of flannel. 

To Clean Chimneys 

Sprinkle two ounces of powdered sulphur on a 
bright fire. This will remove much of the soot from 
the chimney, but will not take the place of the thor- 
ough cleaning that is required from time to time. 



APPENDIX 135 

To Clean Plain China Matting 

Take out of doors on a fine day ; remove the dust ; 
wash with bran water, using no soap as that turns 
the matting yellow. Rinse with cold water; dry as 
thoroughly as possible with dry cloths, then hang on 
a line in the sun until perfectly dry. 

To Clean Chintz, Cretonne and Tapestry 

When the covering is not to be removed, the safest 
thing to use is dry bran rubbed well into the surface 
with a flannel. 

To Wash Cretonnes and Chintzes 

Use lukewarm water in which a little bran has 
been steeped ; no soap. Rinse in cold water and dry 
in a room where there is neither fire nor sunshine. 
Iron on the wrong side. 

To Clean Curtain Rings and HooTcs Made of Metal 

If very much discolored, boil in a mixture of one 
part water to two of vinegar. Rinse in cold water 
and dry. 

To Run a Brass Rod Easily Through the Kern of a 
Curtain 
Place a thimble on the end of the rod. 

To Prepare a Cloth for Polishing Silver 

Boil soft cotton or linen cloths in milk in which 
an ounce of hartshorn powder has been added, for 
five minutes. Remove the cloths : plunge them into 
cold water; wring out well and dry as quickly as 
possible. These cloths may be used for keeping sil- 
ver bright without cleaning it very often. 



136 APPENDIX 

To Keep Earthenware, Glassware and Lamp Chwi- 
neys from Breaking Easily 
Place them when new in a kettle of cold water. 
Bring the water to a boil very gradually. Remove 
the articles, and let them cool gradually. 

To Clean Linoleum 

Add a little kerosene to the water with which it is 
washed: it helps to preserve the linoleum besides giv- 
ing it a slight polish. 

Home-made Linoleum 

Cover the floor with newspapers, then stretch over 
it and tack down securely, either plain burlap or 
old brussels carpet wrong side up. Go over this 
with a coat of thick flour paste ; let dry ; repeat, then 
paint over the surface with one or two coats of deck 
paint, finishing with a coat of good varnish. Before 
using the varnish, the floor may be marked off in 
three-inch squares with black paint, to look like tiles. 

Home-made Glue for Use in Upholstering Furniture 

Get sheets of fish glue, and melt it after breaking 
it into small pieces into the top of a double boiler. 
Add a very little water. 

To Make a Bustle ss Duster 

Dampen a square of cheesecloth with kerosene. 
Place in a covered tin box for twenty-four hours. 
By that time the oil will be evenly distributed. 

A Good Furniture Polish 

Put into a bottle equal parts of turpentine, boiled 
linseed oil and cider vinegar. Keep well corked. 



APPENDIX 137 

Shake well before using. Apply a little on a soft 
cloth, to any plain or varnished furniture or wood- 
work. 

To Remove White Stains Made by Heat or Water, 
from Varnished Surfaces 

1. Apply olive oil and salt. Leave for half an 
hour, then wipe dry with a soft cloth. 

^. Wring a cloth out of boiling water. Place on 
the spot for an instant : remove and rub till dry with 
a soft dry cloth. 

3. Alcohol or camphor applied quickly, then 
rubbed off. 

To Remove Grease Spots from Plain Floor Boards 

Scrub well with a solution of unslaked lime, soda 
and water. 

To Remove Grease Stains from Wall Paper, or Tex- 
tile Fabrics 

Cover the spots thickly with French chalk. Place 
a clean piece of blotting paper over it, and run a 
warm iron across it, repeating the process until the 
spot disappears. 

Leather: to Clean; Polish; and to Restore Its Sur- 
face 
Equal parts of warm water and vinegar may be 
used to clean leather. Apply with a sponge and dry 
with a soft cloth. 

To Restore the Surface to Leather 

Mix equal parts of boiled linseed oil and white 
shellac. Apply very quickly with a soft brush. 



138 APPENDIX 

To Polish Leather 

Rub the surface sparingly with the white of an 
Qgg mixed with a teaspoonful of turpentine. 

To Clean the Mica Linings of Candleshades 

Use vinegar slightly diluted with water. If very 
black soak them for a while in the solution. 

To Clean Fainted Woodwork 

Peel, wash and grate a half dozen potatoes. Put 
them into a pail of water. Let stand half an hour, 
strain and apply to the woodwork with flannel. For 
white woodwork and mirrors use whiting in the wa- 
ter. ^ 

To Remove Paint from Glass 

Use sal soda dissolved in hot water. 

To Remove Hard Oil from Glass 
Use powdered pumice stone. 

To Remove Fly Specks from Gilt Picture Frames, 
Chandeliers, Etc, 

Dissolve an ounce of borax in a pint of boiling 
water. When cold, sponge the soiled places with the 
liquid, using only enough to moisten the spots. Re- 
peat several times. Dry gently. 

To Remove Rust from Stoves 

About once in two weeks, go over the black part 
of the stove with kerosene, doing the work at night 
so as to get rid of the odor before morning. 



APPENDIX 139 

To Remove Tarnish from Nickel 

Make a paste of powdered pumice stone and sweet 
oil. Rub the nickel with this, and polish with a soft 
cloth. 

To Make a Good Silver Polish 

Shred a bar of good soap. Add water and heat 
slowly until the soap is dissolved. When cool it will 
form a jelly. To this add enough whiting to make a 
cream. This will keep a long time, and may be used 
on a flannel for polishing silver. Rinse the silver 
in warm water and polish with a dry flannel or 
chamois. 

To Clean Windows and Mirrors 

A little wood alcohol added to cold water gives a 
brilliant polish without the use of soap. 

To Set Colors in Cotton Fabrics 

Dissolve one ounce of sugar of lead in eight quarts 
of water. Soak the article over night in this solu- 
tion. It has a tendency to darken reds, yellows and 
blues, and to lighten greens. As the sugar of lead 
is a poison it should be kept out of reach of chil- 
dren, and should be emptied down a drain. 

To Tint Cotton Fabrics Ecru or Cream Color 

Try with small pieces of the material dipped in a 
weak solution of coff^ee. Dry, and when the proper 
shade is obtained, dip the material into the coff'ee 
solution. Wring out and dry. 



140 APPENDIX 

To Remove Old Paper from Walls 

Pull off all that is loose. Saturate the rest with 
warm water, and pull or scrape it off, repeating the 
operation as often as is necessary. 

To Prepare Whitewashed or Calcimined Walls for 
Papering 

Brush the walls with a weak solution of vinegar. 
When dry, brush off the loose lime, and give the 
walls a thin coat of glue sizing. 

To Repair Wall Paper 

When papering a room, save some of the paper 
and let it fade slightly by putting it in the sun. 
When marred spots show on the wall, it is then pos- 
sible to tear off pieces of the reserve paper, and paste 
them over the spots, so that they will never be no- 
ticed. 

To Make Library Paste 

Dissolve a teaspoonful of powdered alum in a quart 
of water. Sift through the fingers into the water 
enough flour to give the consistency of cream. Add 
a saltspoonful of powdered resin and a few drops of 
oil of cloves. Have a half pint of boiling water in 
a saucepan on the fire. Into this, strain the above 
mixture, and stir it until it is like a thick gruel. 
It must not boil. Remove it from the fire and put 
it away in covered jars. 

To Clean Piano Keys 

1. Rub them with split lemon followed by salt, 
S. Rub them with alcohol. 



APPENDIX 141 

To Remove Old Paint 

There are many paint and varnish removers on 
the market, but as they are expensive, the follow- 
ing recipes for making them are given : 

1. Mix three pounds of quicklime slaked in water 
with one pound of pearl ash. When this mixture is 
of the consistency of cream it may be applied with 
a brush and allowed to remain a day. The old paint 
may then be readily scraped off. 

2. One pound of sal soda dissolved in a gallon of 
boiling water and applied with a brush will soften 
paint so that it may be scraped off. As both of these 
mixtures are very caustic, gloves and old clothes 
should be worn when doing the work. 

To Keep Paint Brushes Clean 

When brushes are being used from day to day, 
stand them in water; when finished with them for a 
time, wash them with strong soap and warm water 
and rinse them in kerosene. 

To Remove Black Stains Caused by Water from a 
Hardwood Floor 
Pour a strong solution of oxalic acid on the spot. 
Let it remain until the stain disappears. The acid 
will also remove the color from the wood, so this 
must be restored by the use of a stain before the 
polish is applied. 

Encaustic No, 1 

A Polish for Furniture, Floors and Marble 

One pound of beeswax ; one pint of turpentine. 
Melt the wax over gentle heat in a water bath. 



142 APPENDIX 

When soft, remove from the fire and beat in the 
turpentine. 

To Polish a Floor 

Choose a clear day for the work. Sweep and 
wipe the floor free from dust. Have the encaustic 
warm and soft. Dip a cloth into it and go over the 
entire floor with it, renewing the cloth when neces- 
sary. Do not put it on thick. Let the encaustic 
remain on the floor for at least an hour. Now pol- 
ish with a weighted brush until a soft luster comes. 
If a high polish is desired, pin a piece of old carpet 
or flannel cloth to the bottom of the brush and go 
over the floor with this. This method may be used 
with stained, varnished or waxed floors. 

Encaustic No, 2 

To use in cleaning and polishing a floor at the same 
time. It must not be used on stained floors as it 
would remove the color. 

5 quarts of boiling water 

4 ounces laundry soap 

2 ounces sal soda 

1 pound beeswax 

Cut soap and wax fine; put them into the water 
and place on the stove. Stir often until dissolved, 
then add soda and remove from the fire. Stir until 
cool, then put away in a covered vessel. This pol- 
ish when heated and mixed with its own volume of 
turpentine may be used on floors, tiles, marbles and 
bricks. It will also remove ink from varnished sur- 
faces. 



APPENDIX 143 

To on Floors Froperly 

1. Have the room free from dust. 

2. Dampen a woolen cloth with a good quality of 
boiled linseed oil mixed with one third its volume of 
turpentine. Rub with the grain of the wood. If 
the floors are new, put the mixture on hot so that 
the boards will become saturated with it. 

3. Polish the oiled surface with a dry woolen cloth 
so that no surface oil remains. 

Treatment of Furniture That Has Been Faded by 
Exposure to Sun or Hot Air 

If a piece of furniture stands near a window, reg- 
ister or other heating apparatus, the oil will be 
evaporated from the surface and it will become faded 
and full of fine lines. To remedy this, oil the sur- 
face with boiled linseed oil, rubbing it in well. Sev- 
eral applications may be necessary before the trou- 
ble is entirely overcome. Pieces of furniture thus 
exposed should have this treatment now and then to 
avoid this result. 

To Bleach Fabrics 

It is often an advantage to remove the color and 
design from some cotton material which has faded, 
and this may be done by dipping the material into 
Javelle water, then rinsing it in clear water. 

Javelle Water 

This may be purchased at a drug store, but it 
may be made at home by dissolving a quarter of a 
pound of chloride of lime in a quart of water; let 



144 APPENDIX 

it settle, and pour off the clear liquid. Add to this 
a pint of liquid soda. 

Liquid Soda 

Put a pound of sal soda and a quart of water in 
a saucepan on the fire. When the water boils the 
soda will be dissolved. Let cool, then put into bot- 
tles for future use. This is used for whitening 
clothes by adding a tablespoonful to a boiler of wa- 
ter. It is also good for cleaning the sink. 



APPENDIX II 
RECIPES AND SUGGESTIONS 

T I IHE following pages of recipes and suggestions 
X are for the use of those who are inexperienced 
in cooking, and to whom a comprehensive cook book 
seems formidable. I have selected only things which 
from personal experience are most frequently used, 
either by themselves or as a basis for other things. 
They require few utensils, are in the main economical, 
easy to make, palatable, nourishing and attractive. 
By buying bread, it would be possible to live for a 
long time and have plenty of variety without using 
anything except the things for which recipes are here 
given. These recipes are by no means original. 
Many of them are taken wholly or in part from the 
very reliable cook book — the name of which is given 
in the bibliography. 

When these things have been thoroughly mastered, 
and the other branches of housework have also been 
reduced to their simplest form, it will be time enough 
to consult a good cook book for directions for more 
complicated things such as bread, cake, pastry and 
elaborate desserts. 

People of the greatest refinement live in such a 

simple way each day, that they are not embarrassed 

by the arrival of an unexpected guest. The table 

145 



146 APPENDIX 

is set with as great care for a simple family meal of 
two courses, as it would be for an elaborate dinner. 
Even when entertaining, fussed-up cooking is 
avoided. A deep bowl containing a generous quan- 
tity of crisp lettuce leaves, which some one dresses 
on the table, is far more suitable than a salad that 
has been fearfully and wonderfully made beforehand, 
and which looks like the colored pictures one sees in 
illustrated household magazines. 

It is a good plan to keep on hand something green, 
such as parsley, water cress or lettuce, with which to 
garnish a platter of meat or fish, but except for that 
nothing is needed to improve the looks of a piece of 
meat that is properly roasted or broiled. 

Most things are best when allowed to retain their 
own individual flavors, but it is well to know how to 
make a few simple sauces which bring out the delicate 
flavor of certain things that would taste rather flat 
without them. 

By learning how to make the things here given, a 
housewife may keep her family well provided without 
resorting to delicatessen shops for ready-prepared 
foods that are always very high in price and seldom 
as good as home-made things that are properly pre- 
pared. In each case I give what seems to me the 
easiest way to accomplish the desired result. I do 
not say that the way I give is the only way nor the 
best way, except when time and money are things 
that must be considered. 

The easiest way to entertain is to invite people to 
come very informally for a cup of tea late in the 



APPENDIX 147 

afternoon. The only preparations necessary are a 
tray containing a pot of tea, a jug of hot water, a 
plate with slices of lemon, sugar and cream; cups, 
saucers, spoons and small tea napkins should be in 
readiness, a plate of thin slices of bread and butter, 
or dainty sandwiches and a plate containing sweet 
wafers, cinnamon toast, meringues or any other sim- 
ple cakes. Such a tea costs but little and affords a 
delightful means by which one who has to economize 
most strictly may repay her social obligations. 

Another way to entertain that is unique, is in the 
winter to invite people, only a few at a time to late 
Sunday morning breakfast, giving them grapefruit, 
coffee, sausages, waffles and honey or maple sirup. 

Coffee 

There are countless ways of making coffee but as 
each way calls for a special kind of coffee pot, I give 
but one way, as it is possible for every one to buy an 
enameled coffee pot in which excellent boiled coffee 
may be made. Important things to remember are: 
to keep the lid of the coffee pot open when not in use 
so that it may air well; to measure the water accu- 
rately each time — as well as the coffee itself. While 
it is possible to get good coffee that comes ready- 
ground in a tin container, it is still better to have a 
coffee grinder and grind the bean just before using it. 

To make good boiled coffee 

Put into the coffee pot as many cups of cold water 
plus one cup as there are persons to be served. 
While this is coming to a boil, measure the same 



148 APPENDIX 

number of heaping tablespoons ful of medium-ground 
coffee as you have cups of water, and mix it in a 
bowl with a little cold water and a whole egg — shell 
and all. When the water boils put in the coffee and 
egg mixture. Stop up the spout of the coffee pot 
with paper, and allow to simmer for five minutes, 
stirring the grounds once or twice. Let stand for 
three minutes after it is done to settle. Have the 
pot heated from which the coffee is to be served on 
the table, before pouring into it from the enameled 
pot. In serving, always put the sugar and cream 
into the cup before the coffee is poured in. If con- 
venient have the cups warmed. 

Tea 

Many persons prefer tea for breakfast instead of 
coffee, and even coffee drinkers like it now and then 
as a change, particularly when served as an accom- 
paniment of coddled eggs, toasted English muffins 
and orange marmalade. Breakfast tea is usually 
made somewhat stronger than that served in the aft- 
ernoon, as it is usually taken with cream, whereas 
afternoon tea is quite as often taken clear or with 
lemon and tastes better when not so strong. It is 
always well whenever serving it, to provide a jug of 
hot water with which to dilute the tea to the desired 
strength. English Breakfast tea or any good Cey- 
lon tea is usually used. 

To make good tea 

Have a pint of freshly boiled water in an enameled 
sauce-pan. Remove from the fire and when the water 



APPENDIX 149 

stops boilingj put into it three level teaspoons of tea. 
Cover and let stand for five minutes. Strain into a 
heated china or silver tea pot and serve at once. For 
iced tea use one more teaspoonful of tea for the same 
amount of water, but make in the same way, allow- 
ing it to cool before adding ice. 

To make cocoa 

Cocoa is a good drink for children, particularly in 
cold weather. 

% tablespoonful of cocoa 
1 tablespoonful of sugar 
1 cupful of boiling water 

1 cupful of milk 
Small pinch of salt 

Scald milk ; that is, put it in the top of the double 
boiler over cold water. When the water boils the 
milk will be scalded. Mix the cocoa, sugar and salt 
diluted with a quarter of a cup of boiling water, to 
a smooth paste. Add remaining water and boil one 
minute ; turn into scalded milk and beat for one min- 
ute with a Dover egg beater. 

Batter for Waffles, Griddle Calces and Muffins 

2 eggs 

1 pint buttermilk or sour milk or cream 

1 tablespoon melted butter 

1 pint flour 

% teaspoon salt 

% teaspoon soda dissolved in a little boiling water 



150 APPENDIX 

Separate the eggs, add the yolks to the flour, salt 
and milk and beat until well mixed and free from 
lumps. Add butter and soda. Beat the whites of 
the eggs to a stiff froth and add at the last minute. 
Pour onto the griddle or waffle iron from a pitcher. 
Grease should be applied with a brush used only for 
this purpose. 

Griddle cakes, waffles and muffins may be made 
with the same batter. The muffins are baked for 
fifteen minutes in the oven — in muffin tins. Griddle 
cakes may be baked on a flat greased or soapstone 
griddle, while waffles require a waffle iron which 
should be kept at the right temperature throughout 
the process of baking, the irons being greased on 
both sides for each waffle. For this purpose a round 
brush with a wooden handle is best. They should be 
served at once on a hot plate. 

Sausage is good to serve with waffles or griddle 
cakes. The best way to cook it is to bake it in the 
oven in a covered earthenware casserole. Any su- 
perfluous grease should be poured off before placing 
the casserole on the table. Lambs' kidneys, split, 
dipped in flour that has been well seasoned with salt 
and pepper, and placed in a buttered casserole, then 
baked, are also delicious served with waffles. To 
vary this dish, slices of bacon or fresh mushrooms 
or both may be baked with the kidneys. When it is 
not possible to secure pure maple sirup a very good 
substitute may be made by boiling light brown sugar 
with water to the proper consistency. When hot 



APPENDIX 151 

add a few drops of Mapleine. Let cool. Keep some 
of this on hand. 

Oatmeal or Rolled Oats 

Add four parts of salted water to one part of oat- 
meal. Cook for three hours over water in a double 
boiler. Cook enough to serve twice, cooking one day 
and warming it over in time for breakfast the next 
day. The rest may be kept covered in the ice-chest 
until needed. 

All cereals such as wheatena, hominy, cream of 
wheat and farina are best when cooked in the same 
manner as that described for oatmeal. These are 
all good winter cereals. 

For use in the summer, dry cereals such as shred- 
ded wheat, puffed wheat, corn and rice are very pala- 
table when dried thoroughly in the oven and eaten 
with fruits and berries in season. 

Whole Wheat Gems 

Two cups of whole wheat flour mixed with just 
enough cold water to make a very thick batter, that 
falls, not runs from the spoon. Add a dozen Fard 
dates cut in quarters. Have oblong gem pans 
greased and smoking hot. Fill them level full of the 
batter and set into a moderate oven to bake half an 
hour. 

Popovers 

One Qgg, one cup of sweet milk, one cup of flour, % 
teaspoon of salt. Beat well all together with Dover 
egg beater. Custard cups, well greased and heated, 



152 APPENDIX 

should be filled half full. It will require thirty min- 
utes in a moderate oven to bake them. They should 
be twice the height of the cup when done — brown, 
crisp and practically hollow. 

Bacon 

The most economical way to buy bacon is by the 
strip. With a sharp knife it may be cut as needed 
into very thin slices. 

To Cook Bacon 

To hake 

Place on a rack over a pan containing a little hot 
water. Set in the oven and let bake until it is trans- 
parent and crisp without being in the least burned. 
Remove to a piece of absorbent paper until grease is 
absorbed, then serve at once on a hot plate. 

To fry 

Place in a skillet on the stove. Watch it care- 
fully, turning frequently so that it does not burn. 
When thoroughly cooked, remove to a sheet of pa- 
per ; serve when dry and crisp. 

Eggs 

Coddled Eggs 

Have water boiling in a saucepan. With a spoon 
lower the eggs into the water, cover and set aside. 
At the end of four minutes they will be ready for 
those who like very soft boiled eggs. At the end of 
six minutes they will be deliciously jellied. 



APPENDIX 153 

Shirred Eggs 

Have porcelain dish for shirring eggs well but- 
tered and heated. Break one or two eggs into each 
dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper and set into the 
oven until the eggs are glazed over the top. Serve 
at once in the same dish. 

Vermicelli Eggs 

Separate the whites from the yolks of hard boiled 
eggs, allowing one for each person to be served, with 
one extra. Chop the whites of the eggs and mix 
them with a rather thick white sauce, and pour over 
small pieces of buttered toast arranged on a hot plat- 
ter. Over all, mash through a sieve the yolks of the 
eggs and serve at once, garnished with points of 
buttered toast. 

French Omelette 

Break eggs into a bowl — as many as there are per- 
sons to be served. Break eggs with a fork — enough 
to mix the yolks and whites — adding a tablespoon of 
milk for each egg. Season with salt, pepper. Have 
butter in an iron skillet sizzling hot. Turn in the 
omelet mixture. With a flexible spatula, keep fold- 
ing over the thin layers of the mixture — that cooks 
on the bottom of the pan — letting the thin part run 
over the bottom to be cooked. When all is cooked, 
let brown; turn over to brown on the other side and 
serve at once on a hot platter. The whole process 
should not take more than a few moments. Chopped 
parsley, chives — chopped meat may be mixed with 
the eggs — ^jelly or marmalade may be added after it 
is done, according to the taste. 



154. APPENDIX 

Creamed Dried Beef 

Tear dried beef into small pieces. Add it to white 
sauce made without salt. Serve on small slices of 
buttered toast. 

Brown Soup Stock 

6 lbs. shin of beef 

3 quarts cold water 

% teaspoon peppercorns 

6 whole cloves 

% bay leaf 

2 sprigs parsley 

Carrot, turnip, onion, celery, % cup each, cut in 
dice. 

Wipe beef, and cut the lean meat into inch cubes. 
Brown one-third of meat in hot frying-pan in mar- 
row from a marrow-bone. Put remaining two-thirds 
with bone and fat into soup kettle, add water and let 
stand for thirty minutes. Place over a slow fire, 
add browned meat, and heat gradually to the boiling 
point. As scum rises it should be removed. Cover 
and cook slowly six hours, keeping just below the 
boiling point. Add vegetables, cook one and one- 
half hours, strain and cool as quickly as possible. 
Skim off the fat that rises and hardens on top when 
cold. 

Macaroni Soup 

1 quart Brown Soup Stock 

% cup macaroni, broken into half-inch pieces 

Salt 

Pepper 



APPENDIX 155 

Cook macaroni in boiling salted water until soft. 
Drain and add to stock, heated to boiling point. 
Season with salt and pepper. Spaghetti, noodles, 
vermicelli or other Italian soup pastes may be substi- 
tuted for macaroni. 

Julienne Soup 

To one quart Brown Soup Stock add one-fourth 
each of carrot and turnip cut in thin strips one and 
one-half inches long, previously cooked in boiling 
salted water. Add two tablespoons each of cooked 
peas and string beans. Heat to boiling point. 

White Soup Stock 

The water in which fowl or chicken is cooked makes 
white stock. 

White Soup Stock II 
4 lbs. knuckle of veal 
^ quarts boiling water 
1 tablespoon salt 
% teaspoon peppercorns 

1 onion 

2 stalks celery 

Wipe meat, remove from bone, cut in small pieces. 
Put meat, bone, water and seasonings in kettle. 
Heat gradually to boiling point, skimming fre- 
quently. Simmer four or five hours and strain 
through double thickness of cheesecloth. 

Asparagus Soup 

3 cups white stock 
1 can asparagus 



156 APPENDIX 

2 cups cold water 

1 slice onion 
% cup butter 
1/4 cup flour 

2 cups scalded milk 
Salt and pepper 

Drain and rinse asparagus; reserve tips. Add 
stalks to cold water; boil five minutes, drain, add 
stock and onions ; boil thirty minutes, run through 
sieve and bind with butter and flour that have been 
cooked together. Add salt, pepper, milk and tips. 

All cream soups may be made similar to the above, 
using a very thick white sauce, thinned with white 
soup stock and flavored with any desirable vegetable 
— cooked, put through a sieve and mixed with the 
liquid. 

Canned soups, particularly the clear soups, are 
excellent, so it is no longer absolutely necessary to 
go through the long process of soup making unless 
one prefers to do so. 

Oyster Stew 

1 quart oysters 

4 cups scalded milk 

% cup butter 

% tablespoon salt 

% tablespoon black pepper 

Clean oysters by placing in a colander and pour- 
ing over them three-fourths cup of cold water. Pick 
over the oysters, reserve liquor and heat it to the 
boiling point ; strain through double cheesecloth, add 



APPENDIX 157 

oysters and cook until they are plump with curled 
edges. Remove oysters with a skimmer, put into a 
tureen with butter, salt and pepper. Add oyster 
liquor, strained a second time, and milk. Serve with 
crisp oyster crackers. 

Ways of Cooking Salt and Canned Fish 

Creamed Salt Codfish 

Pick salt codfish in pieces and soak in lukewarm 
water until soft, and until the greater part of the salt 
has been removed. Drain and add to one cup of thin, 
white sauce. Remove from fire. Add one egg well 
beaten just before serving. This is best when cream 
is used in making the white sauce. Good with baked 
potatoes. 

Codfish Balls 

1 cup salt codfish 

2 heaping cups potatoes 
1 egg 

1 tablespoon butter 
% teaspoon pepper 

Wash fish in cold water and cut with scissors into 
very small pieces. Wash, pare and soak potatoes, 
cutting into pieces of uniform size before measuring. 
Cook fish and potatoes in boiling water^ — to cover — 
until potatoes are soft. Drain, return to kettle and 
mash thoroughly. Add butter, beaten egg and pep- 
per. Beat with fork. Add salt if necessary. Drop 
by spoonfuls into deep fat, allowing four to each 
frying. Drain on paper. Serve very hot. 



158 APPENDIX 

Baked Finnan Haddie 

Put fish in dripping pan ; surround with milk and 
water in equal proportions ; place on back of range 
to heat slowly. Let stand half an hour; pour off 
liquid, spread with butter, and bake for half an hour. 

Creamed Salmon or Tuna Fish 

Remove bones and skin from a can of salmon or 
Tuna fish. Break up meat in small pieces and add 
to a thick white sauce. Just before serving, remove 
from the fire; add juice of one-half lemon and the 
yolk of one egg well beaten. This is good served in 
a ring of rice. 

Meats 

Best cuts for broiling are : porterhouse, sirloin and 
cross-cut of rump steaks. 

To Broil Steak 

Place on broiler ; turn several times during the first 
two minutes so that the meat will be seared on the 
outside and the juices kept in. Steak II/2 inches 
thick will take six minutes to cook if liked rare. 
Eight or ten minutes if liked well done. Remove to 
hot platter, spread with butter, sprinkle with salt 
and pepper. 

Hamburg Steak 

1 pound top of the round beef. 

Salt, pepper and onion juice (if liked). 

Grind the meat at home in a chopper. Add sea- 
soning. Shape in balls — not too hard. Broil. 
Serve with Maitre d'Hotel Butter. 



APPENDIX 159 

Roast Beef 

Best cuts for roasting are : tip or middle of sirloin, 
back of rump or first three ribs. The former is best 
for a small family ; the latter for a large family. 

To Roast Beef 

Rub over with salt and dredge meat and pan with 
flour. Place in a hot oven so that surface may be 
quickly seared. After flour in pan is browned, re- 
duce heat and baste every fifteen minutes. Allow 
from twelve to fifteen minutes to the pound, accord- 
ing to whether the meat is desired rare or well done. 

To maJce good gravy 

Remove all but about two tablespoons of grease 
from the pan. Have bowl of milk thickened with 
flour and seasoned with salt and pepper. Pour this 
into the pan and place on top of the stove to boil. 
When brown and of the right consistency, strain into 
a gravy bowl to pass at table. 

Fillet of Beef 

This is the whole tenderloin and though more ex- 
pensive than other roasts there is no waste to it and 
it makes a very good cut to use when entertaining. 
It should be larded, and roasted for from twenty to 
thirty minutes. It is best when served with broiled 
fresh mushrooms or with mushroom sauce. 

Pot Roast 

Put a four-pound piece of beef cut from the round 
into a covered pot or kettle, with seasonings and less 
water than half covers the meat. Let it cook four 



160 APPENDIX 

hours, keeping the liquor below the boiling point. 
Thicken the liquor to serve as a gravy. Horseradish 
sauce is good served with Pot Roast. 

Boiled Smoked Tongue 

Parboil the tongue for five minutes. Pour off the 
water. Cover with boiling water and let cook for 
several hours or until tender. Remove outer skin 
while hot. Serve at once. Spinach is a good ac- 
companiment of smoked tongue. 

Braised Fresh Tongue 

Put fresh tongue in kettle, cover with boiling water 
and cook slowly two hours. Take tongue from water 
and remove skin and roots. Place in deep pan and 
surround with one cup each of carrot, onion and 
celery cut in dice, and one sprig of parsley; then 
pour over four cups of sauce. Cover closely and 
bake two hours, turning after the first hour. Serve 
on a platter with sauce strained around the tongue. 

Sauce. Brown one-fourth cup of butter, add one- 
fourth cup of flour and stir together until well 
browned. Add gradually four cups of water in 
which the tongue was cooked. Season with salt and 
pepper and add one teaspoonful of Worcestershire 
Sauce. One and one-half cups of stewed and strained 
tomatoes may be used instead of some of the water. 

Liver and Bacon 

Have calves' liver cut one-half inch thick. Sprin- 
kle each slice with salt and pepper. Dredge with 
flour and fry in bacon fat. Serve garnished with 



APPENDIX 161 

the crisp slices of bacon which have been drained of 
grease on a sheet of paper. 

Braised Liver 

Have upper side of a calf's liver larded. Place in 
deep pan with two cups of brown stock or water. 
Surround with onions — or with a mixture of vegeta- 
bles, such as carrot, onion and celery. Cover closely ; 
bake for two hours, uncovering the last twenty min- 
utes. Strain liquor. Add to one and one-half 
tablespoon of butter and two tablespoons of flour 
melted together. Serve sauce separately, but gar- 
nish the platter with the vegetables. 

Corned Beef Hash 

Remove skin, gristle and most of the fat from 
cooked or canned corned beef. Chop and mix with 
an equal quantity of chopped boiled potatoes. Sea- 
son with salt and pepper, put into a hot buttered fry- 
ing-pan, moisten with milk or cream, stir until well 
mixed, spread evenly and place on a part of the stove 
where it may brown slowly underneath. Fold and 
turn onto a hot platter. Garnish with parsley, and 
serve with fried apple rings. 

Lamb and Mutton Chops 

To broil — see directions for broiling beefsteak. 

Roast Lamb 

Follow directions for roasting beef. It will re- 
quire about an hour and three quarters to roast a leg 
of lamb. 



162 APPENDIX 

Irish Stew 

Wipe and cut in pieces three pounds lamb from the 
fore-quarter. Put in kettle, cover with boiling 
water, and cook slowly for about two hours or until 
tender. After the first hour, add one-half cup each 
of carrot and turnip cut into one-half inch cubes, 
and one onion sliced. Fifteen minutes before serv- 
ing, add four cups of potatoes cut in quarter-inch 
slices, previously parboiled five minutes in boiling 
water. Thicken with one-fourth cup of flour mixed 
to a thin paste with cold water. Season with salt 
and pepper, and serve in an earthenware casserole 
which has been warmed. 

Veal Cutlets and Veal Chops 

Season with salt and pepper. Dredge with flour 
and fry in drippings or butter. Fry slowly and keep 
well covered, so that the meat may be thoroughly 
cooked. 

Fricassee of Veal 

Wipe two pounds of sliced veal cut from the loin, 
and cover with boiling water; add one small onion, 
two stalks of celery, and six slices of carrot. Cook 
slowly until meat is tender. Remove meat, sprinkle 
with salt and pepper, dredge with flour and fry in 
pork fat. Strain liquor ; thicken with flour and pour 
around the veal when serving. 

Pork Chops 

Sprinkle with salt and pepper, place in a hot fry- 
ing pan on top of the stove and cook slowly until ten- 



APPENDIX 163 

der and brown. Garnish platter with rings of apples 
cut one-half inch thick and fried. 

Roast Pork 

Sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on a rack in a 
dripping pan and dredge meat and bottom of the pan 
with flour. Bake in a moderate oven three or four 
hours. After the first hour surround the roast with 
tart apples that have been cored and stuck with sev- 
eral whole cloves. Let the apples bake with the pork 
and serve as a garnish and as a substitute for a green 
vegetable. 

Broiled Ham 

Soak a slice of ham one hour in lukewarm water. 
Drain, wipe and broil for five minutes. 

Boiled Ham 

Soak several hours or over night in cold water to 
cover. Wash thoroughly, trim off hard skin near 
end of bone, put in a kettle, cover with cold water 
and heat to boiling point. Cook slowly until tender. 
Remove kettle from range and set aside that the ham 
may partially cool ; take from the water, remove out- 
side skin, sprinkle with sugar and fine cracker 
crumbs. Stick with cloves one-half inch apart. 
Bake one hour in a slow oven. Serve hot or cold, 
thinly sliced. 

Poultry 

Best way to hroil a chicken 

Place in dripping pan, skin side down; sprinkle 
with salt and pepper, dot with butter, and bake fif- 



164 APPENDIX 

teen minutes in a hot oven. Finish cooking on a 
broiler to brown. 

Boiled Fowl 

Tie a four-pound fowl neatly together, and place 
in a piece of cheesecloth. Place on a wire rack in the 
bottom of a kettle, half surround it with boiling 
water, cover and cook slowly until tender. Add salt 
the last hour. 

Chicken Fricassee 

Dress, clean and cut up a fowl. Put in a kettle, 
cover with boiling water, and cook slowly until ten- 
der, adding salt to water when chicken is about half 
done. Pour off some of the stock to keep for soup. 
Thicken the remainder with milk and flour mixed to a 
smooth paste and seasoned. Serve all on a platter, 
the pieces of chicken being carefully arranged and 
the gravy poured over them. 

Maryland Chicken 

Cut up two chickens, sprinkle with salt and pepper, 
dip in flour, white of egg and crumbs ; place in a 
well-greased dripping-pan, and bake twenty minutes 
in a hot oven, basting after first five minutes with 
one-third cup of melted butter. Arrange on platter 
and pour over two cups of white sauce made with 
cream. 

Potatoes 
Baked Potatoes 

Select smooth, medium-sized potatoes. After 
washing, place in a hot oven. Bake forty minutes 
and serve at once. A variation of a plain baked po- 



APPENDIX 165 

tato is to roll it until soft ; 1. make two cuts at right 
angles on one side of the potato ; open ; put in a good 
sized piece of butter, salt and a generous sprinkling 
of paprika. 

2. Cut potato in half, scoop out the inside, mash 
well ; mix with butter, salt, pepper and chopped pars- 
ley. Heap into the potato skin and place in the oven 
to brown slightly. 

Boiled Potatoes 

Select potatoes of uniform size. Wash, pare and 
drop at once into cold water to soak. Cook in boil- 
ing salted water until soft. Drain and serve in open 
vegetable dish, with chopped parsley on top, melted 
butter, browned butter or a white sauce. 

Mashed Potatoes 

Boil as above until softer than if serving boiled. 
Drain, mash with a wooden masher until free from 
lumps. Add cream or milk, butter and salt. Beat 
with a fork until creamy. Reheat and pile lightly in 
a hot dish. 

Hashed Brown Potatoes 

Cut cold boiled potatoes into tiny cubes. Have 
butter or drippings hot in frying pan. Put the po- 
tatoes in, season well with salt and pepper, turn fre- 
quently until all are hot, then spread out over the 
pan to brown underneath. Fold over and serve on a 
hot platter. 

Creamed Potatoes 

Cut boiled potatoes in dice. Cover in top of 
double boiler with a thin white sauce made with cream 



166 APPENDIX 

if possible and well seasoned. Let heat until a thick 
creamy mass. 

Baked Sweet Potatoes 
Bake as white potatoes. 

Boiled Sweet Potatoes 

Cook twenty minutes in boiling salted water. 

Glazed Sweet Potatoes 

Pare and boil medium-sized potatoes. Cook ten 
minutes in boiling salted water. Drain, cut in halves 
lengthwise, and put in a buttered pan. Brush over 
them with a sirup made with one-half cup of light 
brown sugar, four tablespoons of water and one of 
butter, and boiled three minutes. Bake the potatoes 
fifteen minutes, basting them with the remaining 
sirup. They are good made this way in an earthen- 
ware casserole and served in it. 

Green Vegetables 

All green vegetables should be washed in cold water 
and cooked until tender in boiling salted water. 
Their color will be kept better if a pinch of soda is 
added just before putting them into the water and if 
the lid is left off the kettle. 

Asparagus 

Wash well. Cut off hard ends. Tie in a bunch; 
stand up in lower part of double boiler, the ends out 
of the water. Cover with upper part of boiler so 
that the tips may cook with the steam. Serve on 
toast with melted butter poured over it, with white or 
Hollandaise sauce. 



APPENDIX 167 

Green String Beams 

If tender, string, cut with scissors aslant of the 
bean in half-inch pieces, cook for one-half hour in 
boiling salted water to which a pinch of soda has 
been added. 

Wax Bean^ 

String and cut crosswise in half-inch pieces. Cook 
as green string beans until tender. Serve with white 
sauce thinned and mixed with the beans. 

Lima Beans 

Remove young lima beans from the pods. Cook 

in boiling salted water until tender. Drain. Mix 

with butter, pepper and salt or with a thin white 
sauce. 

Boiled Beets 

Wash and cook young beets in boiling water until 
soft ; it will take at least an hour. Drain ; add but- 
ter, pepper and salt. They may be sliced thin before 
seasoning is added if preferred. 

Boiled Cabbage 

Cut a solid head of cabbage into quarters and re- 
move the tough stalk. Cook in uncovered vessel in 
boiling salted water to which one-fourth teaspoon of 
soda has been added. It will take from thirty min- 
utes to one hour. Drain and serve. It is good 
served with white sauce. 

Cauliflower 

Soak in salted water, head down, for thirty min- 
utes. Leave a few of the tender green leaves on. 



168 APPENDIX 

Cook head up, for twenty minutes in boiling salted 
water. Serve whole with white sauce poured over. 
Hollandaise sauce may be served with cauliflower. 

Celery 

Cut in one-half inch pieces. Boil in salted water 
for twenty minutes or until tender. Drain and mix 
with white sauce. 

Corn 

Green corn should have husks and silk removed 
before being plunged into a kettle of boiling water. 
It should cook from ten to fifteen minutes. Serve 
with a napkin folded around it, or cut from cob and 
heat with butter, pepper and salt. 

Boiled Onions 

Put onions in cold water and remove the skins 
while under water. Drain, put in saucepan and 
cover with boiling salted water; boil five minutes, 
drain, and again cover with boiling salted water. 
Cook one hour or until tender. Drain, add a little 
milk, cook five minutes, season with butter, salt and 
pepper. 

Creamed Onions 

Cook as above and cover with a white sauce made 
with cream. 

Green Peas 

Remove from pods, cover with cold water and let 
stand one-half hour. Cook until tender in a small 
quantity of boiling water, adding salt and a little 
sugar the last fifteen minutes. Drain off any water 



APPENDIX 169 

that is left. Season with salt and pepper. Add 
butter. 

Boiled Spi/nach 

Remove roots. Pick over carefully and wash in 
several waters until very clean. Put into a stew pan 
with a pinch of soda. Allow to heat gradually and 
cook twenty-five minutes in its own juices. If it is 
old it should be cooked as other vegetables in boiling 
salted water. Drain, chop fine, reheat and season 
with butter, salt and pepper. Garnish with slices of 
hard boiled egg. 

Tomatoes 
Sliced Tomatoes 

Wipe, and cover with boiling water ; let stand one 
minute, then skin. Chill thoroughly, cut in one-half 
inch slices and serve with a French dressing — with 
or without lettuce leaves. 

Broiled Tomatoes 

Cut in halves crosswise and cut off a thin slice 
from rounding part of each half. Sprinkle with 
salt and pepper, dip in crumbs, egg and crumbs 
again, place in a well buttered broiler and broil six 
to eight minutes. 

Stewed Tomatoes 

Wipe, pare, cut in pieces; put in a stew pan in 
which some cubes of bread have been fried in butter 
until a golden brown. Season with chopped onion, 
sugar, salt, pepper and butter and let cook slowly 
for twenty minutes. 



170 APPENDIX 

Scalloped Tomatoes 

Canned or fresh tomatoes may be first stewed and 
then put into a baking dish with alternate layers of 
bread or cracker crumbs, having the top covered 
with the crumbs and dots of butter. Bake until the 
crumbs on top are quite brown. 

How to cook rice 

Have three pints of boiling salted water in a 
sauce-pan. Into it sprinkle gradually a cup of 
washed rice. Do not let the water stop boiling. It 
will take about twenty minutes for the rice to be thor- 
oughly cooked. Put into a colander, pour over it a 
pint of boiling salted water and stand the colander 
in a very slow oven so that the rice may dry and 
become very flaky. Serve as a vegetable with but- 
ter or as a cereal with sugar and cream. 

Mayonnaise Dressing 

1 teaspoon dry mustard 

1 teaspoon salt 

% teaspoon powdered sugar 

Dash of cayenne 

Yolks 2 eggs 

S tablespoons lemon juice 

2 tablespoons vinegar 
1% cups olive oil 

Mix dry ingredients, add egg yolks and when well 
mixed add one-half teaspoon of vinegar. Add oil 
gradually, drop by drop at first. As mixture thick-i 



APPENDIX 171 

ens add vinegar or lemon juice. Alternate with oil 
until all are used, stirring constantly. Everything 
should be as cold as possible, and in the end the ma- 
yonnaise should be stiff enough to hold its shape. 
Do not add to salad until the last moment as it 
quickly melts. 

A small quantity may be made very quickly by 
putting proportionate ingredients into a jelly glass 
and using a small sized Dover egg beater. By add- 
ding chopped sour pickle to this, Tartare sauce for 
fish and crabs is made. 

Russian Dressing 

% cup of French Dressing 

% cup of Mayonnaise Dressing 

% cup tomato catsup 

2 tablespoons chopped green pepper 

1 teaspoon powdered sugar 

French Dressing 

% teaspoon salt 
% teaspoon pepper 
Dash of cayenne 
Generous sprinkling of paprika 
1 tablespoon of plain and tarragon vinegar to- 
gether 

4 tablespoons olive oil 

Mix dry ingredients with the vinegar, then add 
the oil, one tablespoon at a time. The bowl may be 
rubbed with onion or garlic before the salad vege- 
table is put into it. 



172 APPENDIX 

Boiled Cream Dressing 
% tablespoon salt 
% tablespoon mustard 
% tablespoon sugar 
1 2gg slightly beaten 
2% tablespoons melted butter 
% cup mild vinegar 
% cup sweet or sour cream 

Mix ingredients in order given. Stir constantly 
in top of double boiler over boiling water. 

Use French Dressing with: 

Plain Lettuce 
Romaine 
Endive 
Chicory 

Combination of any of the above with tomatoes, 
cucumbers, onion and green pepper 
Sliced tomatoes alone 
Sliced cucumber alone 
Shaved young cabbage 

Combination of grapefruit, celery, white grapes 
Sliced oranges and Bermuda onion 
Hawaiian pineapple 
Orange 
Grapefruit 

Use BoUed Dressing for: 

Potato salad with hard boiled eg^ and cucumber 
Salmon or Tuna fish 
Whole tomato with lettuce 



APPENDIX 173 

Chicken 
Cold slaw 
Stuffed eggs 

Use Mayonnaise Dressing for: 

Whole tomatoes stuffed with chopped cucumber. 
Green vegetable salads, such as string bean salad, 
pea salad, celery salad, asparagus salad. 

Use Russian Salad Dressing with: 

Hearts of lettuce cut in halves or in quarters 
Plain Romaine 

Sandwiches Suitable for Lunch or Afternoon 

Tea 

Rolled Sandwiches 

Have a large loaf of fresh bread. Cut off all the 
crust from the entire loaf. Cut the loaf in two and 
begin cutting slices in the center of the loaf where 
the slice is largest. Have butter creamed. Spread 
the bread before cutting it both with the butter and 
with orange marmalade or with whatever soft mix- 
ture you desire. Have a very sharp carving knife 
and cut even slices as thin as possible, then roll, and 
arrange in a neat pile on a plate. If prepared be- 
forehand they should be lightly covered with a damp 
napkin or paraffin paper as they dry very quickly 
on account of being so thin. 

Egg and Green Pepper Sandwich 
1 medium sized green pepper 
1 hard boiled egg 
,% cup boiled dressing 



1T4 APPENDIX 

Put pepper and egg through a chopper. Mix 
with the dressing and use as a filling between slices 
of buttered white bread. Cut any desired shape. 

Celery Mayonnaise Sandwich 

Put celery through the fine blade of a chopper. 
Mix with oil mayonnaise, and use as a filling between 
slices of buttered white bread. 

Tomato Sandwich 

Remove skin from tomato. Cut in very thin 
slices, salt and put between thin slices of white bread 
and butter. 

Onion Sandwich 

Very thin slices of Bermuda onion — dipped in 
French Dressing — ^may be used as a filling for sand- 
wiches of white bread. 

Brown Bread and Cream Cheese 

Use brown bread that has been baked in a half- 
pound Baking Powder tin. Cut slices thin, spread 
with butter with a filling of cream cheese seasoned 
with cayenne and paprika. 

Club Sandwich 

Cut toast in diamond shape. Butter and have a 
layer of crisp bacon, a lettuce leaf, mayonnaise 
dressing, white meat of chicken, mayonnaise, thin 
slice of tomato, and toast on top. This sandwich is 
more suitable for luncheon or late supper than after- 
noon tea. 



APPENDIX 175 

Sauces 
Thm White Sauce 

2 tablespoons butter 
1% tablespoons flour 
1% cup scalded milk 
% teaspoon salt 
Pepper or paprika 

Melt butter with seasoning in sauce pan. Add 
flour and stir until well blended. Add milk gradu- 
ally and stir until thick. It may stand in the top of 
the double boiler over hot water until needed. 

Cream Sauce 

Same as above, using cream instead of milk. 

Matt re d' Hotel Butter 

% cup butter 

% teaspoon salt 

% teaspoon pepper 

% tablespoon finely chopped parsley 

% tablespoon of lemon juice 

Put butter in a bowl; work until creamy with 
wooden spoon. Add salt, pepper and parsley and 
lemon juice very slowly. 

Mint Sauce 

% cup finely chopped mint leaves 

% cup white vinegar 

1 tablespoon powdered sugar 

Add sugar to vinegar; when dissolved pour over 
mint and let stand thirty minutes on back of range. 



176 APPENDIX 

Hollandaise Satbce 

% cup butter 
Yolk of one egg 
Juice of % lemon 
Salt 
Cayenne 

Put egg yolk, salt and cayenne in top of double 
boiler over warm water^ — away from the fire. Have 
butter divided into small pieces on a plate. Add 
one piece at a time until all are melted with the egg 
yolk. The water must not be hot enough to cook 
the egg — ^just warm enough to melt the butter. Add 
gradually the lemon juice and serve at once, with 
fish, cauliflower, artichokes or asparagus. 

Feuit Sauces 
Apple Sauce 

Wash apples well; quarter them without paring. 
Leave seeds in but cut out all that is not good. Put 
in a saucepan with a little water and sugar, and let 
cook slowly until soft. Add sugar if necessary. 
Mash through a colander. Add cinnamon or nutmeg 
if liked — or sprinkle on top. 

Rhubarb Sauce 

Cut rhubarb in inch pieces. Put into a saucepan 
with a little water and sugar. Cook until soft. 
Add sugar if required. 

Cranberry Sauce 

Pick over and wash three cups cranberries. Put 
in a saucepan, add one and one-fourth cups sugar 



APPENDIX 177 

and one cup boiling water. Cover, and boil ten min- 
utes. Do not let them boil over. 

Cranberry Jelly 

Pick over and wash four cups of cranberries. Put 
in a saucepan with a cup of boiling water and let boil 
twenty minutes. Rub through a sieve, add two cups 
sugar, and cook five minutes. Turn into one large 
or individual molds. 

Baked Apples 

Wash and core as many Baldwin apples as needed. 
Stick into each one three whole cloves. Put into a 
baking dish with water in the bottom. Fill cavities 
of the apples with sugar. Bake in a hot oven until 
soft, basting now and then with the liquid. 

Sweet Sauces for Desserts 
Foamy Sauce 
Half cup butter 
1 cup powdered sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

2 tablespoons wine or fruit juice if desired 
% cup boiling water 

White of one egg beaten stiff 

Cream butter ; add sugar, vanilla and wine. Just 
before serving add the boiling water; stir well, add 
Qgg and beat until foamy. 

Hard Sauce 
% cup butter 

1 cup powdered or soft light brown sugar 
Flavor with vanilla, wine, or maple 



178 APPENDIX 

Cream the butter ; add sugar and flavoring gradu- 
ally. Do not chill. 

Custard Sauce 

Same as boiled custard. 

Instead of Cake 

Meringues 

Beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff foam. Add 
gradually two cups of powdered sugar. Flavor with 
vanilla. Drop in spoonfuls on a greased tin and 
place in a very slow oven to dry for about an hour. 
They should dry entirely before being allowed to 
brown. The color should be very pale. 

Marguerites 

Beat the white of one ^gg to a stiff foam; add 
gradually thick maple sirup that has been boiled 
until it threads. Add chopped pecan or walnut 
meats and heap on Saratoga wafers. Place in a 
slow oven until the mixture is dry and slightly 
browned. 

Hickorynut or Pecan Wafers 
1 cup nut meats 
1 cup sugar 
% cup flour 
1 Qgg 

Mix well together and drop on buttered tins. 
Bake in a moderate oven until brown. 



APPENDIX 179 

Little Sponge Cakes 

Weigh 2 eggs 

Weigh same weight of powdered sugar 

Weigh % same weight of flour 

Juice and grated rind of one lemon to five eggs 

Little vanilla. 

Separate the eggs. With a Dover egg beater beat 
yolks, lemon juice and sugar together. Add gradu- 
ally the flour, sifted. Add lemon rind and vanilla. 
Fold in the whites of the eggs beaten very stiff. 
Drop into buttered tins for drop cakes. Sprinkle 
powdered sugar over the tops. Bake for about 
twenty minutes in a moderate oven. 

Simple Desseets 

Junket for two persons 

% pint of milk 
1 tablespoon of sugar 
% junket tablet 
% teaspoon vanilla 
Grated nutmeg 

Dissolve sugar in milk in an enameled saucepan 
over a low flame. Leave until lukewarm. It miLst 
not boil. Dissolve junket by crushing it in a few 
drops of cold water in the bottom of a sherbet 
glass. Add vanilla to the milk, then add the junket. 
Mix well and quickly pour into two sherbet glasses — 
to remain in a warm room until set. They must not 
be disturbed until then, when they should be placed 



180 APPENDIX 

where it is cold. Grate nutmeg over the top of each 
glass just before serving. 

Custard for two persons 

Yolk of 1 Ggg 

1 tablespoon of granulated sugar 

Pinch of salt 

% pint of milk 

Vanilla 

Mix the egg yolk, sugar and salt m a bowl, using 
an Qgg beater. Add to the milk which is placed in 
the top of the double boiler over boiling water. Stir 
constantly until the mixture coats the spoon. Re- 
move at once, let cool, then add the vanilla and turn 
into glasses from which it is to be served. The white 
of the Qgg may be beaten at the last moment and, 
heaped on top of the custard, will make it a "floating 
island." 

Cup custards 

The above recipe may be used in making baked 
custards by simply adding the ^gg^ sugar and salt 
mixture to the milk after it has been scalded, and 
after adding the flavoring turn at once into custard 
cups and set into a hot oven in a pan of water that 
is just below the boiling point. It will require fif- 
teen minutes to bake them. Test by inserting a sil- 
ver knife. An agreeable departure from this is to 
use grated maple sugar for sweetening and to have 
a piece of maple sugar in the bottom of each cup 
before adding the mixture. 



APPENDIX 181 

Compote of Fruit — Served with custard sauce 

Stew any fruit such as strawberries, gooseberries, 
currants, plums, green gages, peaches or figs, adding 
a very little water and enough sugar to keep them 
from being too tart. Let cook until rather thick. 
When thoroughly chilled serve with a custard sauce. 

Creamy Rice Pudding 

1 quart milk 

1 tablespoonful of washed rice 

1/^ teaspoon salt 

% cup sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

Mix ingredients and pour into buttered pudding- 
dish; bake three hours in very slow oven, stirring 
every fifteen minutes during the first hour to keep 
rice from settling. Seeded raisins may be added at 
the end of the first hour if desired. Serve very cold. 

Bread Pudding 

2 cups stale bread crumbs 

1 quart scalded milk 
y^ cup sugar 

14 cup melted butter 

2 eggs 

1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon vanilla 

Soak bread crumbs in milk; set aside until cool; 
add sugar, butter, eggs slightly beaten, salt and 
flavoring; bake one hour in buttered baking dish in 
a slow oven ; serve hot with hard sauce. 



182 APPENDIX 

Prune Whip 

1 cup of prune pulp 

Whites of five eggs 

% cup sugar 

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice 

Pick over and wash prunes, then soak several 
hours in cold water; cook in same water until soft; 
remove stones and mash through a strainer, add 
sugar and cook five minutes. Beat whites of eggs 
untn very stiff; add prunes when cold, and lemon 
juice. Pile lightly on buttered pudding-dish; bake 
twenty minutes in a slow oven. Serve cold with 
boiled custard. 

Apple Meringue 

Fill a pudding-dish half full of apple sauce. 
Spread the sauce with a meringue made of the whites 
of two eggs into which has been beaten ^ cup of 
powdered sugar. Flavor with vanilla. Set into a 
slow oven until the meringue is quite hard on top 
and a very pale brown. Serve very cold, with cream 
or custard sauce made from the yolks of the eggs. 

Fruit Salad 

Shredded pineapple, sliced oranges and sliced 
grapefruit — arranged in alternate layers and sprin- 
kled with powdered sugar. 

To Shred Pineapple 

Pare and cut out the eyes. With a silver fork 
pull off small pieces of the soft part until nothing 
but the core remains. 



APPENDIX 183 

To slice oranges and grapefruit 

Pare off the outer and the white skin. With a 
sharp knife cut out the sections, leaving the white 
skin that separates them. Remove all seeds. 

Ambrosia 

Sections of orange, powdered sugar and shredded 
cocoanut served in sherbet glasses. 

Lemon Jelly 

1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 

^ cup cold water 

1^ cups boiling water 

% cup sugar 

14 cup lemon juice 

Soak gelatine ten minutes in the cold water. Dis- 
solve in the boiling water; add sugar, lemon juice 
and thin slices of outside rind. Strain into a mold 
that has been wet with cold water. Chill and serve 
with custard sauce. 

Orange Jelly 

1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 

^4: cup cold water 

% cups boiling water 

% cup sugar 

% cup orange juice 

1% tablespoons lemon juice 

Make same as lemon jelly. 

Wine Jelly 

Same as orange, add % cup cooking Sherry. 



184 APPENDIX 

Coffee Jelly 

1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 
% cup cold water 

% cup boiling water 

2 tablespoons sugar 
1 cup boiled coffee 

Make same as lemon jelly. Serve with sugar and 
cream. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



The House in Good Taste Elsie de Wolfe 

The Charm of the Antique Robert and Elizabeth 

Shackelton 
The Practical Book of Pe- 
riod Furniture . . . Harold Donald Eber- 

lein and Abbott Mc- 
Lure 
Planning and Furnishing 

the Home .... Mary J. Quinn 
Inside the House of Good 

Taste Richardson Wright 

The Furniture of Our 

Forefathers . . . Esther Singleton 
Box Furniture . . . Louise Brigham 
House Furnishing and 

Decoration .... McClure and Eberlein 
The Efficient Kitchen . . Georgie Boynton Child 
Boston Cooking School 

Cook Book .... Fanny M. Farmer 
The Small Family Cook 

Book Mary D. Pretlow 

The New Housekeeping . Christine Frederick 
How to Cook in Casserole 

Dishes M. H. Hill 

The Craft of Hand-Made 

Rugs . . . . . Amy Mali Hicks 

185 



186 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Home Economics . . . Maria Parloa 
The Small House for a 

Moderate Income . . Ekin Wallick 

Children's Books 

The Fun of Cooking . . Caroline French Benton 
Housekeeping for Little 

Girls . . r.! . • Olive Hyde Foster 
Little Men ( Chapter called 

Pattypans) . . > Louisa May Alcott 

Charmingly Illustrated Books Containing 
Ideas for Interior Decorating 



^H. Willebeck Le Mair 



Our Old Nursery Rhymes 

Little Songs of Long Ago 

The Children's Corner 

Little People 

Das House in Der Sonne . Carl Larson 

Little Ann . . . . . Kate Greenaway 

Magazines 

House and Garden . . The Craftsman 
The House Beautiful . . Vogue 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Advantages of living on a 

small scale, 33, 33 
Alabaster bowls, 77 
Ambrosia, 183 
Andirons, 38 
Antique cut glass, 97 
Apples, baked, 177; meringue, 

182; sauce, 176 
Asparagus, soup, 155; served 

on toast with buttered 

sauce, 166 

Bacon, buying, baking, fry- 
ing, 152; liver and, 160 

Bambino, 47 

Bathroom, 46 

Bed cover, 45 

Bed linen, 102 

Bedroom, 61, 62, 63, 64; orna- 
ments, 110; pictures, 105; 
rug, 91; used as living- 
room because sunny, 23 

Beef, roast, 159; fillet of, 159; 
corned, 161; creamed dried, 
154 

Beets, boiled, 167 

Beans, green string, wax, 
lima, 167 

Bishop and glass lamp, 12 

Black furniture, 37 

Black handrail, 37 

Black and white reproduc- 
tions, 104 



Bleaching fabrics, 143 

Bok, Mr., of Laddies* Home 

Journal, 33 
Books as decorations, 39 
Bonnet box, 46 
Brass, to lacquer, 133; to 

clean, 133 
Bread pudding, 181 
Breeding, 111 

Brown bread and cheese, 174 
Brown color scheme, 22 
Brussels carpets, 89, 90, 91 
Built-in bookcase, 39 
Bulbs, 122 

Cabbage, boiled, 167 

Cakes, little sponge, 179 

Calendar, 116 

Candles, in the dining-room, 
76; in the bedroom, 77; ar- 
rangement of, for Christ- 
mas decorations, 126, 127, 
128, 129, 130 

Candlesticks, to remove wax 
from, 134. 

Candle shades, to clean mica 
lining of, 138 

Canisters, 29, 43 

Care of children's rooms, 112 

Carols, 128, 129 

Casement windows, 86 

Casseroles, 95 

Cauliflower, 167 



189 



190 



INDEX 



Ceilings, height of, 37; to 
clean, 134; center lights 
from, 39 

Celery, 168 

Chandeliers and metal work 
painted, 16 

Character, 111 

Chickens, broiled, 163; fricas- 
see, 164; Maryland, 164 

Chimneys, to clean, 134 

Chinese embroidered strips, 
41; primroses, 123 

Chintz, to clean, 135 

Chops, lamb and mutton, 161 

Christian, 111, 112 

Christmas tree, 125, 126 

Clock, 116 

Closet made of jut in wall, 118 

Cocoa, 149 

Codfish, creamed salt, balls, 
157 

Coffee, boiled, 147; jeUy, 184 

College pennants, 11 

Colonial homestead, 4; re- 
stored, 6 

Colored reproductions of pic- 
tures, 104 

Cotton fabrics, to set color 
in, to tint, 139 

Conveniences, 112 

Cook books, 116 

Corn, 168 

Cranberry, sauce, 176; jelly, 
177 

Crane, Walter, 6 

Cupboard covering partition 
window, 15 

Curtains, bathroom, 46; Ba- 
tiste, 82; casement cloth, 
82f, 85; casement window, 
86; chambray, 85; China 
silk, 83; chintz, 85; cheese- 



cloth, 82, 86; cretonne, 85; 
denim, 85, 88; Dutch cur- 
tains, 85; filet lace, 81; fix- 
tures, 84; French door, 87; 
front door, 36, 80, 81; glass,* 
82, 83; guest room, 46; In- 
dia cotton, 85; Java cotton, 
85; kitchen, 44; linen, 82, 
85, 88; monk's cloth, 85, 88; 
muslin, 82, 86; net, 82, 86; 
over curtains, 83, 84; por- 
tieres, 87; rope, 88; rep, 85, 
88; scrim, 82; silk, 85; suit- 
ability of, 80; sunfast mate- 
rials, 84, 88; tarlton, 82; 
theatrical scrim, 82; un- 
bleached cotton, 82, 85; 
valances, 82; velour, 85, 88; 
velvet, 85; vestibule door, 
81; voile, 82 
Curtain rings, to clean, 135 
Custard, for two, cup, 180; 

sauce, 178 
Cyclamen, 123 

Decorated china, 95 
Decoration of Colonial rooms, 

7 
Delia Robbia, 36, 125, 128 
Descriptions and price lists, 

57; of bedroom, 61, 62, 63, 

64; dining-room, 65, 66, 67; 

hall, 57, 58; kitchen, 67, 68; 

living-room, 58, 59, 60; 

nursery, 69 ; sewing-room, 

64; vestibule, 57 
Desserts, 179, 180, 181, 18^, 

183, 184 
Dining-room, 40, 65, 66, 67; 

rug for, 19, 90 
Dishes, 41, 94, 95, 96 
Doctor's suite, 14 



INDEX 



191 



Don'ts for amateur decora- 
tor, 73, 73, 74 

Door knocker, 46 

Dressing, boiled cream, 172; 
French, 171; mayonnaise, 
170, 173; Russian, 171, 173 

Dried flowers and pods for 
winter decoration, 124 

Dust, to lay when sweeping, 
134 

Duster, dustless, 136 

Earthenware, to keep from 

breaking, 136 
East India drugget, 89, 90, 91 
Editor's letter contained in 

"The Little House" book- 
let, 55, 56 
Effect of plain light paper as 

opposed to dark figured 

paper, 21 
Eggs, coddled, 152; French 

omelette, 153; shirred, 153; 

vermicelli, 153 
Electric fixtures, 38, 39, 41, 42, 

46 

see lighting, 75 
Encaustic, 141, 142 
Enclosed shelves, 40 
English ivy, 41, 122 
Essential features in the 

choice of a home, 22, 34 
Extracts received by "Little 

House" Editor, 52, 53, 54 

Family portraits, 105 
Fashions, 79 

Figured paper, 37, 72, 73 
Finnan haddie, baked, 158 
Fire-irons, 38 

Fish, ways of cooking, 30, 157 
Floors, 38; to oil, 143; to pol- 
ish, 141, 142 



Floor coverings, 89; bedroom, 
91; Brussels, 89, 90, 91; 
dining-room, 90; domestic 
rugs, 90; East India drug- 
get, 89, 90, 91; hall, 89; 
hand-woven wool rug, 89, 
90; linoleum, 57, 91; living- 
room, 89, 90; Oriental, 89, 

90, 91; oval rag rugs, 92; 
rag rugs, hand-woven, 89, 

91, 92; machine made, 89, 
90, 91; Saxony, 89, 90, 91; 
Scotch wool rug, 89, 90 

Flowers in house decoration, 

122 
Fowl, boiled, 164 
French doors, 38, 40, 41, 87 
French prints, 45 
Fruit, compote of, 181; salad, 

182; sauces, 176; in house 

decoration, 124 
Fuchsias, 123 
Furniture, polish, 136, 141; 

treatment for faded, 143 

Garbage pail, 29, 43 

Geraniums, 46 

Gilt, to remove fly specks 
from, 138 

Glass, to clean. 138, 139 

Glass door, 36 

Glassware, cut glass, antique, 
97; modern, 96; for wash- 
stand, 46; list, 97; pressed 
Colonial, 96; to keep from 
breaking, 136 

Glue, 136 

Good taste, 79 

Grapefruit:, to slice, 183 

Gravy, 159 

Grease stains, to remove, 137 

Greenaway, Kate, 6 



192 



INDEX 



Griddlecakes, 149 
Guest room, 19, A>5 

Hall, 37, 57, 58; floor cov- 
erings, 89; lighting fixtures, 
75, 76 
Ham, broiled, boiled, 163 
Handrail, 37 
Hash, corned beef, 161 
Hepplewhite furniture, 41 
Hickory nut wafers, 178 
Hook for provision slips, 116 
Hour work for cleaning wom- 
an, 31 
Housekeeping for children, 10 
Housework, 31; schedule for, 

115; system in. 111 
Hyacinths, 123 

Ice chest painted to match 
furniture, 28, 44 

Impressionistic painting, 40 

Individualty in house decora- 
tion, 55 

Irish stew, 169 

Italian fringed towels, 45 

Japanese prints, 104; towel- 
ing, 46 

Javelle water, 143 

Jelly, coffee, 184; cranberry, 
177; lemon, 183; orange, 
183; wine, 184 

Juniper, 123 

Junket for two persons, 179 

Jut in wall, used as closet, 
118; occupied by two beds, 
119 

Kitchen, 30 x 40 inches, 16, 
27, 28, 29, 42; linens, 101; 
ornaments, 44; utensils, 43 



Lamb chops, 161; roast, 161 

Lamp for living-room, 107 

Lanterns, 76 

Large pictures, to hang, 103 

Leaded domes, 75, 77 

Leather, to clean, polish and 
restore surface of, 137 

Lemon jelly, 183 

Library paste, 113, 140 

Lighting fixtures, bathroom, 
77; bedroom, 46, 77; din- 
ing-room, 41, 76; hall, 75, 
76; kitchen, 42, 76; living- 
room, library and music- 
room, 38, 76; selection and 
placing of, 75; on stairs, 
77; vestibule, 75 

Lighting theory, 77, 78 

Linen list, 101 

Linoleum, 57, 91; to clean, 
136; home-made, 136 

Liquid soda, 144 

Liver and Bacon, 160; 
braised, 161 

Living-room, 38, 105, 107, 108 

Maid's room, 47 

Magazine stand, 120 

Mantel ornaments, 108 

Marguerites, 178 

Matches and ash trays, 113 

Matting, to clean, 135 

Mattress, 20 

Meringues, 178 

Mid- Victorian furnishings, 5 

Moldings, 40 

Muffins, 149 

•'My Room," 8 

Newspapers and Magazines, 
113, 114 



INDEX 



193 



Nickel, to remove tarnish 

from, 139 
Nine-roomed suburban home, 

first floor, 35; second floor, 

36 

Oak chiflfonier transformed, 

120 
"Oak trim" not good with 

mahogany, 22 
Oatmeal, 151 

Odd pieces of tableware, 99 
Office, 47 
Old inside blinds, what can 

be done with, 119, 120 
Onions, boiled, creamed, 168 
Open stock china, 94 
Orange jelly, 183; how to 

slice, 183 
Oriental rugs, 89, 90, 91 
Ornaments, 106 
Outside decoration of houses, 

Christmas Eve, 129 
Oval braided rugs, 45 
Overhead lights, 76 
Oyster stew, 156 

Pad and pencil, 116 

Paint, to remove, 141 

Paint brushes, to keep clean, 

141 
Paneled walls, 40 
Paper furniture, 3 
Paper white narcissus, 122 
Paste, library, 113, 140 
"Patty Pans'" 9 
Peas, green, 168 
Pecan wafers, 178 
Percentage of women who do 

their own work, 51 
Piano keys, to clean, 140 
Pictures, 103, 104, 105; af- 



fecting treatment of room, 

40; that repeat color of 

rest of room, 39 
Pincushion, 113 
Pineapple, to shred, 182 
Plated silver, 97, 98 
Playhouses, 9 
Polish, for furniture, 136, 

141; for silver, 139 
Polished floor without rug, 41 
Popovers, 151 
Porcelain, to clean, 133 
Pork, chops, 162; roast, 163 
Portieres, 87 
Potatoes, baked, 164; baked 

sweet, 166; boiled, 165; 

boUed sweet, 166; creamed, 

165; glazed sweet, 166; 

hashed brown, 165; mashed, 

165 
Prune whip, 182 
Pussy willow, 123 

Rag rugs, 89, 90, 91, 92 
Religious pictures, place for, 

105 
Rented apartments and 

houses, how to improve, 13, 

14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 

22, 23 
Rep, 85, 88 
Rhubarb sauce, 176 
Rice, creamy pudding, 181; 

how to cook, 170 
Rope portieres, 88 

Salad, fruit, 182 

Salmon, creamed, 158 

Sandwiches, brown bread and 
cheese, 174; celery mayon- 
naise, 174; club, 174; egg 
and green pepper, 173; 



194 



INDEX 



onion, 174; rolled, 173; to- 
mato, 174 

Sauces, for desserts, 177, 178; 
for meats and vegetables, 
175, 17fi; fruit, 176 

Sausage, 150 

Saxony carpets and rugs, 89, 
90, 91 

Scales, 116 

Schedules of work, 114, 115 

Scotch wool rugs, 19, 89, 90 

Sewing machine as dressing 
table, 19, 121 

Shades, 82, 86 

Silver, 94; cloth for polish- 
ing, 135; polish, 139 

Silverware, 97 

Sink built high, 27 

Slip covers for bed ends, 118; 
for chairs, 117 

Soup, asparagus, 155; Juli- 
enne, 155; macaroni, 154; 
stock, 154, 155 

Spinach, boiled, 169 

Stains, to remove, 137, 141 

Steak, Hamburg, 158; to 
broil, 158 

Stoves, to remove rust from, 
138 

Sunfast material, 41, 84, 88. 

Table cloths, 100 
Table linen, 100 
Tableware, 94 
Tapestry, to clean, 135 
Tea, 148 
Telephone, 44 
Temperamental requisites for 

living in small quarters, 32 
Tiles, 36; colored with alabas- 

tine, 16, 23 



Toilet articles, 45 

Tomatoes, broiled, 169; sand- 
wiches, 174; scalloped, 170; 
sliced, 169; stewed, 169 

Tongue, boiled smoked, 160; 
braised fresh, 160 

Tool chest, 112 

Train and street car sched- 
ules, 113 

Two beds occupying space of 
one, 27 

Two-roomed apartment, 26 

Ugly things improved, 117, 

118, 119, 120, 121 
Upstairs broom closet, 113 

Veal, cutlets, chops, fricassee 

of, 162 
Vegetables, how to cook 

green, 166 
Vestibule, 36 

Waffles, 149 

Wall paper, to remove, 140; 

to remove stains from, 137; 

to repair, 140 
Walls, 38, 46; to prepare for 

papering, 140 
Washstand set of clear glass, 

46 
Whole wheat gems, 151 
Wild fruit blossoms, 123 
Window lighting on Christ- 
mas Eve, 127 
Window shelves for plants, 

38, 40 
Wine jelly, 184 
Woodwork, 37, 46 
Writing materials and table, 

113 



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